Epiphyte response to drought and experimental warming in an Andean cloud forest.

ABSTRACT: The high diversity and abundance of vascular epiphytes in tropical montane cloud forest is associated with frequent cloud immersion, which is thought to protect plants from drought stress. Increasing temperature and rising cloud bases associated with climate change may increase epiphyte drought stress, leading to species and biomass loss. We tested the hypothesis that warmer and drier conditions associated with a lifting cloud base will lead to increased mortality and/or decreased recruitment of epiphyte ramets, altering species composition in epiphyte mats. By using a reciprocal transplant design, where epiphyte mats were transplanted across an altitudinal gradient of increasing cloud immersion, we differentiated between the effects of warmer and drier conditions from the more general pre

SUBMITTER: Rapp JM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4133766 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature