Altitude effects on spatial components of vascular plant diversity in a subarctic mountain tundra.

ABSTRACT: Environmental gradients are caused by gradual changes in abiotic factors, which affect species abundances and distributions, and are important for the spatial distribution of biodiversity. One prominent environmental gradient is the altitude gradient. Understanding ecological processes associated with altitude gradients may help us to understand the possible effects climate change could have on species communities. We quantified vegetation cover, species richness, species evenness, beta diversity, and spatial patterns of community structure of vascular plants along altitude gradients in a subarctic mountain tundra in northern Sweden. Vascular plant cover and plant species richness showed unimodal relationships with altitude. However, species evenness did not change with altitude, suggestin

SUBMITTER: Naud L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6476787 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature