Potential sources of time lags in calibrating species distribution models.

The Anthropocene is characterized by a rapid pace of environmental change and is causing a multitude of biotic responses, including those that affect the spatial distribution of species. Lagged responses are frequent and species distributions and assemblages are consequently pushed into a disequilibrium state. How the characteristics of environmental change-for example, gradual 'press' disturbances such as rising temperatures due to climate change versus infrequent 'pulse' disturbances such as extreme events-affect the magnitude of responses and the relaxation times of biota has been insufficiently explored.

Rapid upwards spread of non-native plants in mountains across continents.

High-elevation ecosystems are among the few ecosystems worldwide that are not yet heavily invaded by non-native plants. This is expected to change as species expand their range limits upwards to fill their climatic niches and respond to ongoing anthropogenic disturbances. Yet, whether and how quickly these changes are happening has only been assessed in a few isolated cases.

More losses than gains during one century of plant biodiversity change in Germany.

Long-term analyses of biodiversity data highlight a 'biodiversity conservation paradox': biological communities show substantial species turnover over the past century, but changes in species richness are marginal. Most studies, however, have focused only on the incidence of species, and have not considered changes in local abundance. Here we asked whether analysing changes in the cover of plant species could reveal previously unrecognized patterns of biodiversity change and provide insights into the underlying mechanisms.

ReSurveyGermany: Vegetation-plot time-series over the past hundred years in Germany.

Vegetation-plot resurvey data are a main source of information on terrestrial biodiversity change, with records reaching back more than one century. Although more and more data from re-sampled plots have been published, there is not yet a comprehensive open-access dataset available for analysis. Here, we compiled and harmonised vegetation-plot resurvey data from Germany covering almost 100 years.

From white to green: Snow cover loss and increased vegetation productivity in the European Alps.

Mountains are hotspots of biodiversity and ecosystem services, but they are warming about twice as fast as the global average. Climate change may reduce alpine snow cover and increase vegetation productivity, as in the Arctic. Here, we demonstrate that 77% of the European Alps above the tree line experienced greening (productivity gain) and <1% browning (productivity loss) over the past four decades.

Extinction debts and colonization credits of non-forest plants in the European Alps.

Mountain plant species shift their elevational ranges in response to climate change. However, to what degree these shifts lag behind current climate change, and to what extent delayed extinctions and colonizations contribute to these shifts, are under debate. Here, we calculate extinction debt and colonization credit of 135 species from the European Alps by comparing species distribution models with 1576 re-surveyed plots.

Author Correction: Warming shortens flowering seasons of tundra plant communities.

In the version of this Article originally published, the following sentence was missing from the Acknowledgements: "This work was supported by the Norwegian Research Council SnoEco project, grant number 230970". This text has now been added.

Warming shortens flowering seasons of tundra plant communities.

Advancing phenology is one of the most visible effects of climate change on plant communities, and has been especially pronounced in temperature-limited tundra ecosystems. However, phenological responses have been shown to differ greatly between species, with some species shifting phenology more than others. We analysed a database of 42,689 tundra plant phenological observations to show that warmer temperatures are leading to a contraction of community-level flowering seasons in tundra ecosystems due to a greater advancement in the flowering times of late-flowering species than early-flowering species.

Plant functional trait change across a warming tundra biome.

The tundra is warming more rapidly than any other biome on Earth, and the potential ramifications are far-reaching because of global feedback effects between vegetation and climate. A better understanding of how environmental factors shape plant structure and function is crucial for predicting the consequences of environmental change for ecosystem functioning. Here we explore the biome-wide relationships between temperature, moisture and seven key plant functional traits both across space and over three decades of warming at 117 tundra locations.

Hotspots within a global biodiversity hotspot - areas of endemism are associated with high mountain ranges.

Conservation biology aims at identifying areas of rich biodiversity. Currently recognized global biodiversity hotspots are spatially too coarse for conservation management and identification of hotspots at a finer scale is needed. This might be achieved by identification of areas of endemism.

Range dynamics of mountain plants decrease with elevation.

Many studies report that mountain plant species are shifting upward in elevation. However, the majority of these reports focus on shifts of upper limits. Here, we expand the focus and simultaneously analyze changes of both range limits, optima, and abundances of 183 mountain plant species.

Greater temperature sensitivity of plant phenology at colder sites: implications for convergence across northern latitudes.

Warmer temperatures are accelerating the phenology of organisms around the world. Temperature sensitivity of phenology might be greater in colder, higher latitude sites than in warmer regions, in part because small changes in temperature constitute greater relative changes in thermal balance at colder sites. To test this hypothesis, we examined up to 20 years of phenology data for 47 tundra plant species at 18 high-latitude sites along a climatic gradient.

Idiosyncratic responses of high Arctic plants to changing snow regimes.

The Arctic is one of the ecosystems most affected by climate change; in particular, winter temperatures and precipitation are predicted to increase with consequent changes to snow cover depth and duration. Whether the snow-free period will be shortened or prolonged depends on the extent and temporal patterns of the temperature and precipitation rise; resulting changes will likely affect plant growth with cascading effects throughout the ecosystem. We experimentally manipulated snow regimes using snow fences and shoveling and assessed aboveground size of eight common high arctic plant species weekly throughout the summer.