Late Quaternary climate legacies in contemporary plant functional compositionBlonder, B., Enquist, B. J., Graae, B. J., Kattge, J., Maitner, B. S., Morueta-Holme, N., Ordonez, A., Šímová, I., Singarayer, J., Svenning, J.-C., Valdes, P. J. and Violle, C. (2018) Late Quaternary climate legacies in contemporary plant functional composition. Global Change Biology, 24 (10). pp. 4827-4840. ISSN 1365-2486
It is advisable to refer to the publisher's version if you intend to cite from this work. See Guidance on citing. To link to this item DOI: 10.1111/gcb.14375 Abstract/SummaryThe functional composition of plant communities is commonly thought to be determined by contemporary climate. However, if rates of climate‐driven immigration and/or exclusion of species are slow, then contemporary functional composition may be explained by paleoclimate as well as by contemporary climate. We tested this idea by coupling contemporary maps of plant functional trait composition across North and South America to paleoclimate means and temporal variation in temperature and precipitation from the Last Interglacial (120 ka) to the present. Paleoclimate predictors strongly improved prediction of contemporary functional composition compared to contemporary climate predictors, with a stronger influence of temperature in North America (especially during periods of ice melting) and of precipitation in South America (across all times). Thus, climate from tens of thousands of years ago influences contemporary functional composition via slow assemblage dynamics.
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