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Growth of the alpine herb Rumex alpinus over two decades: effect of climate fluctuations and local conditions

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Abstract

Plants in arctic and alpine habitats could potentially escape the effects of climatic fluctuations by surviving in suitable microsites. We tested this hypothesis by conducting a herb-chronological analysis of the morphological growth markers retained on the rhizomes of the clonal herb Rumex alpinus—a common plant with a broad ecological amplitude found in the alpine zone of the Low Tatra Mts., Western Carpathians, Slovakia. We asked whether aspects of plant growth were related to the climatic conditions measured at a local weather station over two approximately decade-long study periods (1977–1988 and 2001–2010) on both snowbed and non-snowbed sites. Although the latter period had average summer temperatures that were about 2 °C warmer than the first, both had the same average growing season length and average total monthly precipitation. Snow accumulation and other climatic events shortened the growing seasons for the plants in the first period, thus reducing vegetative growth. On the other hand, climatic events prolonging the growing seasons supported plant growth and flowering in the snowbed site. In the second, warmer period, growing season lengths were not related to plant performance but August temperatures had a positive effect on plant growth in both the snowbed and non-snowbed sites. Our results imply that mesoclimatic factors substantially affect plant growth, although their relative importance might change with climate fluctuations altering their influence in sites of differing snow accumulation.

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Acknowledgments

We dedicate the work to memory of our late colleague Leoš Klimeš who participated on the first sampling of Rumex alpinus. English corrections were kindly provided by Brian McMillan, invaluable comments were provided by Dennis Whigham. Study was partly supported by Grant agency of the Czech Republic GA526/09/0963 and by a long-term research development project of Institute of Botany ASCR No. RVO 67985939. JD was supported during the elaboration of this paper by GAČR 13-13368S, and the University of South Bohemia (GAJU 138/2010/P).

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  1. Jitka Klimešová

    Present address: Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, 647 Contees Wharf Road, Edgewater, MD, 21037, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Section of Plant Ecology, Institute of Botany, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Dukelská 135, 379 82, Třeboň, Czech Republic

    Jitka Klimešová & Jiří Doležal

  2. Faculty of Science, University of South Bohemia, Branišovská 31, 370 05, České Budĕjovice, Czech Republic

    Jiří Doležal

  3. Krkonoše Mts. National Park Administration, Dobrovského 3, 543 01, Vrchlabí, Czech Republic

    Petra Št’astná

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  1. Jitka Klimešová
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Correspondence to Jitka Klimešová.

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Klimešová, J., Doležal, J. & Št’astná, P. Growth of the alpine herb Rumex alpinus over two decades: effect of climate fluctuations and local conditions. Plant Ecol 214, 1071–1084 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11258-013-0232-8

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