Think globally, measure locally: The MIREN standardized protocol for monitoring plant species distributions along elevation gradients

HAIDER, SYLVIA; LEMBRECHTS, JONAS J.; MCDOUGALL, KEITH; PAUCHARD, ANÍBAL; ALEXANDER, JAKE M.; BARROS, AGUSTINA; CAVIERES, LOHENGRIN A.; RASHID, IRFAN; REW, LISA J.; ALEKSANYAN, ALLA; ARÉVALO, JOSÉ R.; ASCHERO, VALERIA; CHISHOLM, CHELSEA; CLARK, V. RALPH; CLAVEL, JAN; DAEHLER, CURTIS; DAR, PERVAIZ A.; DIETZ, HANSJÖRG; DIMARCO, ROMINA D.

Ecology and Evolution

John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Año: 2022 vol. 12

2045-7758

Climate change and other global change drivers threaten plant diversity in mountainsworldwide. A widely documented response to such environmental modifications is forplant species to change their elevational ranges. Range shifts are often idiosyncraticand difficult to generalize, partly due to variation in sampling methods. There is thusa need for a standardized monitoring strategy that can be applied across mountainregions to assess distribution changes and community turnover of native and nonnative plant species over space and time. Here, we present a conceptually intuitiveand standardized protocol developed by the Mountain Invasion Research Network(MIREN) to systematically quantify global patterns of native and non-native speciesdistributions along elevation gradients and shifts arising from interactive effects ofclimate change and human disturbance. Usually repeated every five years, surveysconsist of 20 sample sites located at equal elevation increments along three replicateroads per sampling region. At each site, three plots extend from the side of a mountainroad into surrounding natural vegetation. The protocol has been successfully used in 18 regions worldwide from 2007 to present. Analyses of one point in time alreadygenerated some salient results, and revealed region-specific elevational patterns ofnative plant species richness, but a globally consistent elevational decline in nonnative species richness. Non-native plants were also more abundant directly adjacentto road edges, suggesting that disturbed roadsides serve as a vector for invasions intomountains. From the upcoming analyses of time series, even more exciting resultscan be expected, especially about range shifts. Implementing the protocol in moremountain regions globally would help to generate a more complete picture of howglobal change alters species distributions. This would inform conservation policy inmountain ecosystems, where some conservation policies remain poorly implemented.