The boreal-temperate forest ecotone response to climate change

A warming global climate will elicit changes in the distribution of plant species around the planet, and this will become most apparent where biomes converge. Climate exerts the strongest control over the geographic location of ecotones at the continental scale and many, including the boreal forest - temperate forest ecotone (BTE), are expected to shift to higher latitudes under climate change. Fine-scale drivers that define biome boundaries at the sub-continental scale are less well understood for many ecotones. We assembled studies addressing whether a modern distributional shift is occurring at the BTE and what biotic and abiotic factors are driving such a shift. Current research suggests a northward shift is occurring; yet, scant data are available to identify the processes involved. Abiotic and biotic factors are repeatedly identified as key drivers of change, though not all claims are evidence-supported and the interacting effects of these non-climatic factors are poorly understood.