Topography modulates near-ground microclimate in the Mediterranean Fagus sylvatica treeline.

ABSTRACT: Understanding processes controlling forest dynamics has become particularly important in the context of ongoing climate change, which is altering the ecological fitness and resilience of species worldwide. However, whether forest communities would be threatened by projected macroclimate change or unaffected due to the controlling effect of local site conditions is still a matter for debate. After all, forest canopy buffer climate extremes and promote microclimatic conditions, which matters for functional plant response, and act as refugia for understory species in a changing climate. Yet precisely how microclimatic conditions change in response to climate warming will depend on the extent to which vegetation structure and local topography shape air and soil temperature. In this study, we p

SUBMITTER: Rita A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8046975 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature