Abstract
Climate change shuffles species ranges and creates novel interactions that may either buffer communities against climate change or exacerbate its effect. For instance, facilitation can become more prevalent in salt marshes under stressful conditions while competition is stronger in benign environments. Sea-level rise (SLR) is a consequence of climate change that affects the distribution of stress from inundation and salinity. To determine how interactions early in SLR are affected by changes in these two stressors in Mediterranean-climate marshes, we transplanted marsh turfs to lower elevations to simulate SLR and manipulated cover of the dominant plant species, Salicornia pacifica (formerly Salicornia virginica). We found that both S. pacifica and the subordinate species were affected by inundation treatments, and that subordinate species cover and diversity were lower at low elevations in the presence of S. pacifica than when it was removed. These results suggest that the competitive effect of S. pacifica on other plants is stronger at lower tidal elevations where we also found that salinity is reduced. As sea levels rise, stronger competition by the dominant plant will likely reduce diversity and cover of subordinate species, suggesting that stronger species interactions will exacerbate the effects of climate change on the plant community.
Highlights
Climate change has altered ecological communities by shifting species ranges and interactions among co-occuring species
We found that experimentally simulated sea-level rise intensified the competitive effects of S. pacifica on subordinate plant species, indicating that early stages of sea-level rise are likely to Elevation (E) Removal (R) Time (T) E×R E×T R×T E×R×T
Removal of S. pacifica resulted in higher diversity of associated plants at KF, and this effect was strongest at the lowest tidal elevations
Summary
Climate change has altered ecological communities by shifting species ranges and interactions among co-occuring species. The impact of new or intensified interactions may be as important as the direct effects of climate on species [1,2]. In rocky intertidal communities, the effect of a keystone predator becomes stronger as distributions of the immobile prey species are affected by climate change more than that of the predator [3]. In alpine plant communities, a shift in plant distributions can lead to increased competition among plants that do not migrate effectively, exacerbating the effects of climate change [4]. Facilitative interactions that moderate desiccation stress become more prevalent.
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