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Climatic Drivers of Tree Growth and Recent Recruitment at the Pyrenean Alpine Tree Line Ecotone

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Ecotones Between Forest and Grassland

Abstract

Global climate is currently warming at an unprecedented rate with potentially profound and widespread effects on the distributions of plant species and ecological communities (IPCC 2007; Lenoir et al. 2008). Mountain ecosystems and their unique biota are particularly sensitive to such changes (Beniston 2003). In high elevation forests, climate has been considered to be the main limiting factor for tree growth, reproduction and establishment (e.g. Tranquillini 1979; Körner 1998; Ettinger et al. 2011). The upper elevational limit of forest and tree growth on mountain slopes, the alpine tree line ecotone (ATL), represents an abrupt transition in life form dominance and is one of the most prominent vegetation boundaries between ecosystems (Holtmeier 2009). On a global scale, heat deficiency remains the most likely explanation of ATL elevation irrespective of the latitude and the tree line forming species (Körner and Paulsen 2004). Hence, based on the traditional tree line paradigm, warm temperature is favourable to both tree radial growth and reproductive success, and thus the ATL may be exceptional for the potential it offers for the assessment of the impacts of anthropogenic warming on mountain forests.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to all the people who helped us in the field work, and to PN Alt Pirineu, PN Cadí-Moixeró and PN Aigüestortes i Estany de Sant Maurici for their collaboration. Special thanks to J.M. Ninot, E. Carrillo, J. Carreras and A. Ferré for their permanent support. This study was supported by the project REN2002-04268 (Spanish Ministry of Research). E.B. and J.J.C. also acknowledge the support from MEC-FPU grant and ARAID, respectively.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departament d’Ecologia, Universitat de Barcelona, Avinguda Diagonal 645, 08028, Barcelona, Spain

    Enric Batllori & Emilia Gutiérrez

  2. Department of Environmental Science, Policy & Management, University of California, Berkeley, 94720, USA

    Enric Batllori

  3. ARAID, Instituto Pirenaico de Ecología, CSIC, Avenida Montañana, 1005, 50080, Zaragoza, Spain

    J. Julio Camarero

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  1. Enric Batllori
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Correspondence to Enric Batllori .

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  1. , Biology Department, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, 74078, Oklahoma, USA

    Randall W. Myster

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Batllori, E., Camarero, J.J., Gutiérrez, E. (2012). Climatic Drivers of Tree Growth and Recent Recruitment at the Pyrenean Alpine Tree Line Ecotone. In: Myster, R. (eds) Ecotones Between Forest and Grassland. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-3797-0_11

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