Abstract
High mountain environments are often characterised by low temperatures and short growing seasons, yet support high plant endemism and biodiversity. While such ecosystems are considered among the most vulnerable to climatic warming, the impacts of climate change on diversity and composition can be complex. To develop a deeper understanding of these dynamics, changes in vegetation over time along five alpine summits that are part of the Global Observation Research Initiative in Alpine Environment (GLORIA), were assessed including species richness, α-diversity, β-diversity, vegetation and growth form cover as well as composition. The five summits of Mount Clarke in the Australian Alps were surveyed in 2004, 2011 and 2019. Despite increases in species richness over time, there was an overall decline in diversity through biotic homogenisation across the summits. Near complete vegetation cover was recorded in 2004 but increased over the 15 years via in-filling and densification, driven by increasing cover of graminoids and shrubs. Consequently, there was also a shift in species composition which was greatest at higher elevations. The results indicate that there has been a shift towards more competitive and thermophilic composition, which may have implications for flammability in a warming and drying climate. Further assessments will be required to more fully explore the effect of climate variation from climate change, and implications for conservation of this and other alpine floras globally.
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Data availability
Data is available at https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataset.xhtml?persistentId=doi:10.7910/DVN/VWBZHN.
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Acknowledgements
We acknowledge the ngarigo and kombumerri as First Nations and Traditional Custodians of the land on which the fieldwork and desktop research for this study was conducted. We pay our respect to their Elders past and present, recognise that sovereignty was never ceded and acknowledge their continued connection to country and culture. Thank you to P. Norman, R. Stewart, G. Wright, M. Schroder, G. Cobb and J. Dodd for assisting with fieldwork, and we extend our thanks to those whom were involved in previous assessments. We would also like to thank C. Morrison for proofing the manuscript. This study was supported by funding from New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife as well as funding from Griffith University by a Research Degree scholarship for one of the authors (BV).
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This manuscript is to be used in Biodiversity and Conservation and was funded by Griffith University.
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BV contributed to data collection in 2019, data analysis and writing. KG contributed to project design and data collection in 2004, 2011 and 2019. CMP contributed to project design, data collection in 2004, 2011 and 2019 and revised the manuscript.
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Verrall, B., Green, K. & Pickering, C.M. Dynamics in plant diversity and composition on Australian alpine summits over time. Biodivers Conserv 30, 1855–1880 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-021-02171-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-021-02171-1