TY - JOUR
T1 - Effects of climate and forest development on habitat specialization and biodiversity in Central European mountain forests
AU - Richter, Tobias
AU - Geres, Lisa
AU - König, Sebastian
AU - Braziunas, Kristin H.
AU - Senf, Cornelius
AU - Thom, Dominik
AU - Bässler, Claus
AU - Müller, Jörg
AU - Seidl, Rupert
AU - Seibold, Sebastian
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2024.
PY - 2024/12
Y1 - 2024/12
N2 - Mountain forests are biodiversity hotspots with competing hypotheses proposed to explain elevational trends in habitat specialization and species richness. The altitudinal-niche-breadth hypothesis suggests decreasing specialization with elevation, which could lead to decreasing species richness and weaker differences in species richness and beta diversity among habitat types with increasing elevation. Testing these predictions for bacteria, fungi, plants, arthropods, and vertebrates, we found decreasing habitat specialization (represented by forest developmental stages) with elevation in mountain forests of the Northern Alps – supporting the altitudinal-niche-breadth hypothesis. Species richness decreased with elevation only for arthropods, whereas changes in beta diversity varied among taxa. Along the forest developmental gradient, species richness mainly followed a U-shaped pattern which remained stable along elevation. This highlights the importance of early and late developmental stages for biodiversity and indicates that climate change may alter community composition not only through distributional shifts along elevation but also across forest developmental stages.
AB - Mountain forests are biodiversity hotspots with competing hypotheses proposed to explain elevational trends in habitat specialization and species richness. The altitudinal-niche-breadth hypothesis suggests decreasing specialization with elevation, which could lead to decreasing species richness and weaker differences in species richness and beta diversity among habitat types with increasing elevation. Testing these predictions for bacteria, fungi, plants, arthropods, and vertebrates, we found decreasing habitat specialization (represented by forest developmental stages) with elevation in mountain forests of the Northern Alps – supporting the altitudinal-niche-breadth hypothesis. Species richness decreased with elevation only for arthropods, whereas changes in beta diversity varied among taxa. Along the forest developmental gradient, species richness mainly followed a U-shaped pattern which remained stable along elevation. This highlights the importance of early and late developmental stages for biodiversity and indicates that climate change may alter community composition not only through distributional shifts along elevation but also across forest developmental stages.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85209375065&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1038/s42003-024-07239-6
DO - 10.1038/s42003-024-07239-6
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85209375065
SN - 2399-3642
VL - 7
JO - Communications Biology
JF - Communications Biology
IS - 1
M1 - 1518
ER -