4.8 Article

Rock glaciers and related cold rocky landforms: Overlooked climate refugia for mountain biodiversity

Journal

GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY
Volume 27, Issue 8, Pages 1504-1517

Publisher

WILEY
DOI: 10.1111/gcb.15510

Keywords

alpine stream; biodiversity monitoring; climate adaptation; climate change ecology; debris-covered glacier; icy seeps; mountain hydrology; talus slope

Funding

  1. NSF [OPP-1906015]
  2. U.S. Forest Service

Ask authors/readers for more resources

Cold rocky landforms in mountain ranges, often overlooked in ecological literature, have the potential to provide stable and cool habitats for biodiversity in the face of climate warming. These features may act as key climate refugia for terrestrial and aquatic biodiversity, remaining on the landscape even after adjacent glaciers and snowfields have melted.
Mountains are global biodiversity hotspots where cold environments and their associated ecological communities are threatened by climate warming. Considerable research attention has been devoted to understanding the ecological effects of alpine glacier and snowfield recession. However, much less attention has been given to identifying climate refugia in mountain ecosystems where present-day environmental conditions will be maintained, at least in the near-term, as other habitats change. Around the world, montane communities of microbes, animals, and plants live on, adjacent to, and downstream of rock glaciers and related cold rocky landforms (CRL). These geomorphological features have been overlooked in the ecological literature despite being extremely common in mountain ranges worldwide with a propensity to support cold and stable habitats for aquatic and terrestrial biodiversity. CRLs are less responsive to atmospheric warming than alpine glaciers and snowfields due to the insulating nature and thermal inertia of their debris cover paired with their internal ventilation patterns. Thus, CRLs are likely to remain on the landscape after adjacent glaciers and snowfields have melted, thereby providing longer-term cold habitat for biodiversity living on and downstream of them. Here, we show that CRLs will likely act as key climate refugia for terrestrial and aquatic biodiversity in mountain ecosystems, offer guidelines for incorporating CRLs into conservation practices, and identify areas for future research.

Authors

I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.

Reviews

Primary Rating

4.8
Not enough ratings

Secondary Ratings

Novelty
-
Significance
-
Scientific rigor
-
Rate this paper

Recommended

No Data Available
No Data Available