Abstract
Global climate is rapidly changing and while many studies have investigated the potential impacts of this on the distribution of montane plant species and communities, few have focused on those with oceanic montane affinities. In Europe, highly sensitive bryophyte species reach their optimum occurrence, highest diversity and abundance in the north-west hyperoceanic regions, while a number of montane vascular plant species occur here at the edge of their range. This study evaluates the potential impact of climate change on the distribution of these species and assesses the implications for EU Habitats Directive-protected oceanic montane plant communities. We applied an ensemble of species distribution modelling techniques, using atlas data of 30 vascular plant and bryophyte species, to calculate range changes under projected future climate change. The future effectiveness of the protected area network to conserve these species was evaluated using gap analysis. We found that the majority of these montane species are projected to lose suitable climate space, primarily at lower altitudes, or that areas of suitable climate will principally shift northwards. In particular, rare oceanic montane bryophytes have poor dispersal capacity and are likely to be especially vulnerable to contractions in their current climate space. Significantly different projected range change responses were found between 1) oceanic montane bryophytes and vascular plants; 2) species belonging to different montane plant communities; 3) species categorised according to different biomes and eastern limit classifications. The inclusion of topographical variables in addition to climate, significantly improved the statistical and spatial performance of models. The current protected area network is projected to become less effective, especially for specialised arctic-montane species, posing a challenge to conserving oceanic montane plant communities. Conservation management plans need significantly greater focus on potential climate change impacts, including models with higher-resolution species distribution and environmental data, to aid these communities' long-term survival.
Highlights
Mountain regions are thought to be especially susceptible to the effects of climate change [1]
Model performance This study demonstrates the need to include ecologically relevant topographic variables when projecting species distributions in relation to climate change on a regional scale, especially for species strongly affected by topography and the resultant microclimate
Species distributions are shaped by macroclimate, whereas at smaller local or regional scales, factors such as topography modify this to produce a complex pattern of species distribution and diversity [72]
Summary
Mountain regions are thought to be especially susceptible to the effects of climate change [1]. Subject to both maritime and continental influences, present a number of difficulties for climatic change predictions and are likely to be significantly different from those of lowland regions, with altitudinal gradients and orographic effects adding to the local spatial and temporal variability [2], [3]. Among the many impacts of climate change are the observed and projected changes in species altitudinal [6], [7] and geographical range [8], [9]. Many factors influence a species’ ability to alter its range in response to climate change, including dispersal ability and availability of suitable habitat. There is a growing body of phylogenetic evidence to suggest that long-distance dispersal has occurred for a range or arctic-alpine plant species under past changing climates [12], [13], [14], indicating that dispersal may not be as limiting a factor to the future survival of some species as previously thought
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