Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 113, Issue 16, Pages 4380-4385Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1520582113
Keywords
alpine treeline; treeline dynamics; climate change; interspecific competition; Tibetan Plateau
Categories
Funding
- Southeast Tibet Station for Alpine Environment, Observation and Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences
- Third Pole Environment Database
- National Basic Research Program of China [2012FY111400]
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [41525001, 41130529, 41301207]
- Youth Innovation Promotion Association, CAS
- European Research Council [SyG-2013-610028 IMBALANCE-P]
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The alpine treeline is commonly regarded as being sensitive to climatic warming because regeneration and growth of trees at treeline generally are limited by low temperature. The alpine treelines of the Tibetan Plateau (TP) occur at the highest elevations (4,900 m above sea level) in the Northern Hemisphere. Ongoing climatic warming is expected to shift treelines upward. Studies of treeline dynamics at regional and local scales, however, have yielded conflicting results, indicating either unchanging treeline elevations or upward shifts. To reconcile this conflict, we reconstructed in detail a century of treeline structure and tree recruitment at sites along a climatic gradient of 4 degrees C and mean annual rainfall of 650 mm on the eastern TP. Species interactions interacted with effects of warming on treeline and could outweigh them. Densification of shrubs just above treeline inhibited tree establishment, and slowed upward movement of treelines on a time scale of decades. Interspecific interactions are major processes controlling treeline dynamics that may account for the absence of an upward shift at some TP treelines despite continued climatic warming.
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