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Linking changes in community composition and function under climate change
Citation
Mokany, K and Thomson, JJ and Lynch, AJJ and Jordan, GJ and Ferrier, S, Linking changes in community composition and function under climate change, Ecological Applications, 25, (8) pp. 2132-2141. ISSN 1051-0761 (2015) [Refereed Article]
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Copyright Statement
Copyright 2015 by the Ecological Society of America
Abstract
Climate change is expected to directly alter the composition of communities and
the functioning of ecosystems across the globe. Improving our understanding of links between
biodiversity and ecosystem functioning across large spatial scales and rapid global change is a
major priority to help identify management responses that will retain diverse, functioning
systems. Here we address this challenge by linking projected changes in plant community
composition and functional attributes (height, leaf area, seed mass) under climate change
across Tasmania, Australia. Using correlative community-level modeling, we found that
projected changes in plant community composition were not consistently related to projected
changes in community mean trait values. In contrast, we identified specific mechanisms
through which alternative combinations of projected functional and compositional change
across Tasmania could be realized, including loss/replacement of functionally similar species
(lowland grasslands/grassy woodlands) and loss of a small number of functionally unique
species (lowland forests). Importantly, we demonstrate how these linked projections of change
in community composition and functional attributes can be utilized to inform specific
management actions that may assist in maintaining diverse, functioning ecosystems under
climate change.
Item Details
| Item Type: | Refereed Article |
|---|---|
| Keywords: | biodiversity, climate change, dissimilarity, ecosystem function, management actions, modeling, plant community composition, plant functional traits, plant species, Tasmania, Australia, vegetation structure |
| Research Division: | Biological Sciences |
| Research Group: | Evolutionary biology |
| Research Field: | Biogeography and phylogeography |
| Objective Division: | Expanding Knowledge |
| Objective Group: | Expanding knowledge |
| Objective Field: | Expanding knowledge in the environmental sciences |
| UTAS Author: | Jordan, GJ (Professor Greg Jordan) |
| ID Code: | 106790 |
| Year Published: | 2015 |
| Web of Science® Times Cited: | 16 |
| Deposited By: | Plant Science |
| Deposited On: | 2016-02-20 |
| Last Modified: | 2017-11-01 |
| Downloads: | 189 View Download Statistics |
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