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Short-term variation in species richness across an altitudinal gradient of alpine summits

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Abstract

In response to climate warming, high altitude alpine vegetation may be replaced by typically lower altitude species, as species re-assemble and migrate to new areas. However, empirical evidence showing vegetation change in response to climate warming is largely unavailable for Australian alpine areas. Here, we examine changes in species richness with respect to climate and altitude over a 7 year period at a range of spatial scales in a re-survey of five alpine summits that are part of the Global Observation Research Initiative in Alpine Environments monitoring network. Eighty species were recorded in 2011 across all summits, an increase of 6 species since 2004. Mean species richness increased at the whole-of-summit scale from 45 to 50 species (about 12 %). At this scale, the rate of species richness increase was almost one new species per year, with 15 new species recorded at one summit. Here, shrub and graminoid species showed the largest increases. At the smaller spatial scales, changes in species richness were less pronounced. Turnover at the species and community level was typically moderate at all spatial scales and on all summits. The strength and direction of species richness change (the difference in species richness between the two sample periods, +/−) was not related to altitude nor variation in climate. Future re-surveys of the summits will confirm whether these short-term variations in species richness, particularly increases in shrubs, are indeed signals of longer-term trends and interactions with a changing climate.

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Acknowledgments

This project was supported by the Australian Alps Liaison Committee, the National Climate Change and Adaptation Research Facility and the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service. Sarah Butler, Nicole Beutel, Rochelle Steven and Craig Hyde assisted with fieldwork. Special thanks go to Georg Grabherr and the GLORIA Vienna team. Sarah Butler commented on early versions of the manuscript. We also thank two anonymous referees for their valuable and insightful comments and suggestions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Environment, Griffith University, Gold Coast, QLD, 4222, Australia

    Susanna Venn & Catherine Pickering

  2. Department of Botany, Research Centre for Applied Alpine Ecology, La Trobe University, Bundoora, VIC, 3086, Australia

    Susanna Venn

  3. New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service, Snowy Mountains Region, PO Box 2228, Jindabyne, NSW, 2627, Australia

    Ken Green

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  1. Susanna Venn
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Correspondence to Susanna Venn.

Appendix

Appendix

See Tables 5 and 6.

Table 5 Spatial scales and statistics used to compare species richness between 2004 and 2011
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Table 6 Results for the statistical tests performed on species richness data comparing differences between 2004 and 2011 at various spatial scales
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Venn, S., Pickering, C. & Green, K. Short-term variation in species richness across an altitudinal gradient of alpine summits. Biodivers Conserv 21, 3157–3186 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-012-0359-2

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