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Response to Comment on "Forest microclimate dynamics drive plant responses to warming"
Florian Zellweger1,2, Pieter De Frenne3, Jonathan Lenoir4
1Forest Ecology and Conservation Group, Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3EA, UK. florian.zellweger@wsl.ch.
Science (New York, N.Y.)
|December 11, 2020
Summary
Forest understory plant communities face a climatic debt due to warming. This response to warming is most critical in forests with reduced canopy cover, indicating localized climate impacts.
Area of Science:
- Ecology
- Climate Change Biology
- Botany
Background:
- Understory plant communities are sensitive to microclimatic changes.
- Canopy cover plays a role in modulating local climate within forests.
- Assessing the rate of community response to warming (thermophilization) is crucial for understanding ecosystem resilience.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the relationship between canopy cover and the climatic debt experienced by understory plant communities.
- To determine if local microclimate buffering by canopy influences the rate at which plant communities respond to warming.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of microclimate warming rates in relation to plant community thermophilization rates across forests with varying canopy cover.
- Comparison of warming and thermophilization discrepancies in relation to forest canopy structure.
Main Results:
- A significant discrepancy between microclimate warming and plant community thermophilization was observed.
- This discrepancy was most pronounced in forests with reduced canopy cover.
- The findings suggest that canopy buffering influences the climatic debt and the urgency for community adaptation.
Conclusions:
- Forest canopy cover significantly modulates the climatic debt in understory plant communities.
- Reduced canopy cover exacerbates the need for understory communities to respond to warming.
- Local climate buffering is a key factor in the ecological response to global change.
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