sTreelines – Spatial pattern emergence from ecological processes at alpine treelines: model-supported hypothesis tests against globally-distributed field data
First meeting: 03.-06.12.2018
iDiv member:
Thorsten Wiegand
Volker Grimm
Isabell Hensen
Project summary:
Alpine-treeline elevations can be predicted by temperature reasonably well at the global scale. At more local scales they can vary strongly and are harder to predict, as factors other than temperature (e.g. wind and snow, biotic interactions, land use) play an increasingly important role. Likewise, treeline responses to global warming are very variable. The pattern in this variablility remains unclear due to a lack of synthetic studies on treelines globally. To improve our understanding of treeline-forming processes and our ability to predict treeline shifts in response to climatic changes, we propose to link spatial patterns to ecological processes at alpine treelines. We aim to synthesize participants´ expertise on ecological processes at treeline into a spatally-explicit individual-based model and to develop and test hypotheses about pattern-process relationships based on existing data sets of treeline spatial patterns and dynamics by using the developed model. We will also develop guidelines for adapting existing and collecting new data to be used for spatial pattern analysis and model comparison. A basis for the model is developed before the first meeting and will be adapted and extended during and after the meeting. In the second meeting, the model will be used to test both the internal logic of the hypotheses and to synthesize pattern-process relationships at treeline sites around the world. This double synthesis, of process knowledge and of spatio-temporal information, is also meant to form the basis for coordinated treeline research and monitoring globally.
Participants:
Maaike Bader (University of Marburg), Carissa Brown (Memorial University), Hannah Buckley (Auckland University of Technology), Harald Bugmann (ETH Zurich), David Cairns (Texas A&M University), Jesus Julio Camarero (Instituto Pirenaico de Ecología-CSIC), Bradley Case (Auckland University of Technology), Fabian Doeweler (AUT Auckland), Volker Grimm (UFZ), Isabell Hensen (MLU Halle), Luis Daniel Llambi Cartaya (Instituto de Ciencias Ambientales y Ecologicas, Universidad de Los Andes), Lirey Ramirez (University of Marburg), Lynn Resler (Virginia Tech), Johanna Toivonen (University of Turku), Thorsten Wiegand (UFZ)
Second meeting: 11.-14.11.2019
Participants:
Maaike Bader (University of Marburg), Carissa Brown (Memorial University), David Cairns (Texas A&M University), Bradley Case (Auckland University of Technology), Fabian Doeweler (AUT Auckland), Lukas Flinspach (University of Marburg), Frank Hagedorn (Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL), Isabell Hensen (MLU Halle), Luis Daniel Llambi Cartaya (Instituto de Ciencias Ambientales y Ecologicas, Universidad de Los Andes), Pavel Moiseev (Institute of Plant and Animal Ecology of Ural Devision of Russian Academy of Science), Nishtha Prakash (University of Marburg), Lirey Ramirez (University of Marburg), Lynn Resler (Virginia Tech), Johanna Toivonen (University of Turku), Thorsten Wiegand (UFZ)
Publications:
Bader, M.Y., Llambí, L.D., Case, B.S., Buckley, H.L., Toivonen, J.M., Camarero, J.J., Cairns, D.M., Brown, C.D., Wiegand, T. and Resler, L.M. (2020) A global framework for linking alpine‐treeline ecotone patterns to underlying processes. Ecography. See here
