PLEA Network

11 April 2018, Climate News Network, Mountain plants head for the peaks. Mountain plants are heading uphill – with climate change, there seems to be room at the top for more alpine species. Mountain plants are on the rise. The number of species on the highest European mountains has multiplied five fold. Data gathered over 145 years from 302 peaks shows that the count of wild plants that have colonised the highest zones has increased five times faster than during a comparable decade 50 years ago. This may not, in the long run, be good news. The enriching of the high life is unequivocally linked to global warming: changes in precipitation, or in nutrient supplies, are not enough to account for the growth in alpine colonists. More than 50 scientists from Denmark, Norway, Germany, France, Austria, the UK, Italy, Switzerland, Poland, Spain and Slovakia report in the journal Naturethat such change has “potentially far-reaching consequences not only for biodiversity, but also for ecosystem functioning and services.” The finding was possible because European botanists and biologists began assembling data on the plant growth at the highest sites in the 1870s and have maintained their databases ever since.”The strong acceleration in the effects of global warming on plant communities on the peaks does give cause for concern, as we expect far stronger climate change toward 2100” The scientists found that between 1957 and 1966, the average number of species on the 300 peaks increased by 1.1 on average. Between 2007-2016, on average 5.5 species made it to the top. The study does not, so far, suggest that new species have displaced the original residents. But plants adapted to the conditions on the highest peaks may run out of options as the mountains themselves get warmer. Read More here