European forest plants are migrating westwards, nitrogen main cause
image:
The common wood sorrel (Oxalis acetosella) migrates westwards at a speed of around 5 kilometres per year and northwards at around 0.1 kilometres per year. The main driver is nitrogen deposition
view moreCredit: Petr Harant
New research reveals nitrogen pollution, and to a lesser extent climate change, unexpectedly as the key driver behind surprising westward shifts in the distribution of plants.
A recent study has uncovered that many European forest plant species are moving towards the west due to high nitrogen deposition levels, defying the common belief that climate change is the primary cause of species moving northward. This finding reshapes our understanding of how environmental factors, and in particular nitrogen pollution, influence biodiversity.
While it is widely assumed that rising temperatures are pushing many species toward cooler, northern areas, this research shows that westward movements are 2.6 times more likely than northward shifts. The primary driver? High levels of nitrogen deposition from atmospheric pollution, which allows a rapid spread of nitrogen-tolerating plant species from mainly Eastern Europe. The establishment of these highly competitive species in areas with high nitrogen deposition rates often comes at the expense of the more specialized plant species.
The results highlight that future biodiversity patterns are driven by complex interactions among multiple environmental changes, and not due to the exclusive effects of climate change alone. Understanding these complex interactions is critical for land managers and policymakers to protect biodiversity and ecosystem functioning.
Key findings:
- European forest plants shift their distributions at an average velocity of 3.56 kilometer per year.
- 39% of the plant species shift westward. Northward shifts are only observed for 15% of the species.
- Nitrogen pollution rather than climate change is surprisingly the main factor behind westward distribution shifts in European forest plants.
- The study analyzed the shifts in the distribution area of 266 forest plant species across Europe over several decades, with the first measurements being taken in the year 1933 at some locations.
- Several of Europe’s most emblematic forests were included in this study, such as the primeval forest Białowieża in Poland.
This research was financed inter alia by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG; FZT-118). It is a product of the sDiv working group sREplot. iDiv’s synthesis centre sDiv supports working group meetings where international scientists work together on scientific issues.
Journal
Science
Article Title
Unexpected westward range shifts in European forest plants links to nitrogen deposition
Article Publication Date
11-Oct-2024
Nitrogen deposition has shifted European forest plant ranges westward over decades
Summary author: Walter Beckwith
Researchers have documented a shift in plant species ranges toward the poles or higher latitudes in the face of climate warming, but Pieter Sanczuk and colleagues now reveal another unexpected pattern of range shift. For decades, understory plants in European temperate forests have been on the move westward, spurred by differences in nitrogen deposition rates. Westward species distribution shifts were 2.6 times more likely than northward ones, according to the researchers, who also noted that forest canopy changes played a role in this shift as well. The findings suggest that factors beyond climate change, such as atmospheric pollution, are also an important part of redistributing biodiversity. Sanczuk et al. reviewed plant community data collected for 266 understory plant species from surveys between 1933 and 1994 and paired those data with resurvey information collected between 1987 and 2017. They found a trend of species ranges moving west over multiple decades that was connected to atmospheric nitrogen deposition rates. As generalist species shifted to take advantage of high-nitrogen areas, species that had experienced lower nitrogen depositions rates across their distributions initially had faster westward shifts. Colonization along the east-west axis was more closely related to nitrogen and sulfur deposition rates than measures of climate change such as temperature and precipitation.
Journal
Science
Article Title
Unexpected westward range shifts in European forest plants links to nitrogen deposition
Article Publication Date
11-Oct-2024
Seed dispersal “crisis” may impact plant species’ future in Europe
Summary author: Becky Ham
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Europe is facing a seed dispersal “crisis,” due to extinction threats and population changes among the animals that do the seed dispersing, according to a new synthesis by Sara Beatriz Mendes and colleagues. Their literature review of animal and plant dispersal pairs helped them reconstruct the first European-wide seed dispersal network. Seed dispersal by animals is a critical part of maintaining healthy ecosystems, especially in fragmented environments like those found throughout Europe. Lack of seed dispersal to connect populations could prevent declining plant populations from recovering. Researchers have thought that the loss of animal species in the region might impact this important process, but little is known about how these disperser-plant pairs are disrupted by species loss. Beatriz Mendes et al. found that one-third of these crucial interactions are of high concern, meaning that the species participating in them are listed as near threatened, threatened, or with declining populations by the IUCN Red List. They further note that 30% of plant species have most of their dispersers in the high concern category. Each animal species dispersed on average 13 plant species, while each plant species had on average nine dispersers. While the researchers acknowledge that there are significant gaps in disperser relationship data, they suggest their findings could be used to target conservation efforts to preserve high-concern disperser relationships.
Journal
Science
Article Title
Evidence of a European seed dispersal crisis
Article Publication Date
11-Oct-2024
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