Emergence patterns of locally novel plant communities driven by past climate change and modern anthropogenic impacts

Staples TL, Kießling W, Pandolfi JM (2022)


Publication Type: Journal article

Publication year: 2022

Journal

DOI: 10.1111/ele.14016

Abstract

Anthropogenic disturbance and climate change can result in dramatic increases in the emergence of new, ecologically novel, communities of organisms. We used a standardised framework to detect local novel communities in 2135 pollen time series over the last 25,000 years. Eight thousand years of post-glacial warming coincided with a threefold increase in local novel community emergence relative to glacial estimates. Novel communities emerged predominantly at high latitudes and were linked to global and local temperature change across multi-millennial time intervals. In contrast, emergence of locally novel communities in the last 200 years, although already on par with glacial retreat estimates, occurred at midlatitudes and near high human population densities. Anthropogenic warming does not appear to be strongly associated with modern local novel communities, but may drive widespread emergence in the future, with legacy effects for millennia after warming abates.

Authors with CRIS profile

Involved external institutions

How to cite

APA:

Staples, T.L., Kießling, W., & Pandolfi, J.M. (2022). Emergence patterns of locally novel plant communities driven by past climate change and modern anthropogenic impacts. Ecology Letters. https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.14016

MLA:

Staples, Timothy L., Wolfgang Kießling, and John M. Pandolfi. "Emergence patterns of locally novel plant communities driven by past climate change and modern anthropogenic impacts." Ecology Letters (2022).

BibTeX: Download