No treeline shift despite climate change over the last 70 years

Background:The recent rise in temperature and shifting precipitation regimes threaten ecosystems around the globe to different degrees.Treelines are expected to respond to climate warming by shifting to higher elevations,but it is unclear whether they can track temperature changes.Here,we integrated high-resolution aerial imagery with local climatic and topographic characteristics to study the treeline dynamic from 1945 to 2015 on the semiarid Mediterranean island of Crete,Greece.Results:During the study period,the mean annual temperature at the treeline increased by 0.81℃,while the average precipitation decreased by 170 mm.The treeline is characterized by a diffuse form,with trees growing on steep limestone slopes(>50°)and shallow soils.Moreover,the treeline elevation decreases with increasing distance from the coast and with aspect(south>north).Yet,we found no shift in the treeline over the past 70 years,despite an increase in temperature in all four study sites.However,the treeline elevation correlated strongly with topographic exposure to wind(R^(2)=0.74,p<0.001).Therefore,the temporal lag in treeline response to warming could be explained by a combination of topographic and microclimatic factors,such as the absence of a shelter effect and a decrease in moisture.Conclusion:Although there was no treeline shift over the last 70 years,climate change has already started shifting the treeline altitudinal optimum.Consequently,the lack of climate-mediated migration at the treeline should raise concerns about the threats posed by warming,such as drought damages,and wildfire,especially in the Mediterranean region.Therefore,conservation management should discuss options and needs to support adaptive management.

Predicting the effectiveness of protected areas of Natura 2000 under climate change

Background:Protected areas(PAs)are aimed to hold the environmental conditions that facilitate species and ecosystems to persist.PAs can become climatically unsuitable and unable to sustain their current number of species under climate change.The Natura 2000(N2K)is the largest coordinated conservation tool assigned to maintain the long-term survival of Europe’s most significant species and habitats.In attempting to understand the effectiveness of PAs in the face of climate change scenarios,we tested two hypotheses:(1)PAs in the Alpine and the Boreal biogeographical regions will experience more newly emerged climate conditions(hotter and drier)compared to the climate representation of other biogeographical regions under future climate in Europe and(2)PAs in the Mediterranean and the Continental biogeographical regions will face more consistency in climate conditions due to less area of disappearing and novel climate in future.Methods:Current climate data(1960–1990)and projections for 2050 and 2070 of PAs of N2K were extracted from WorldClim global climate data.Principal components analysis(PCA)was performed to construct climate space for the PAs across the biogeographical regions based on 19 climatic variables assessed at 5-km resolution.ArcMap 10.1 was used to map the location of the novel and disappearing climates.Results:PAs in the Alpine region will experience more novel climate conditions in the future compared to other biogeographical regions.The future projections showed that 17.70%of the PAs in the Alpine region will experience novel climate by 2070.Considerable climate consistency was observed in the PAs in the Continental region compared to the other biogeographical regions.Our results showed that about 176 km2 of the selected PAs in the Continental region will face new emerging climate,while about 110 km2 will disappear under RCP 8.5 scenario.The prediction also revealed that in the Mediterranean region 08 PAs will experience novel climate and 786 km2 areas in these PAs will face disappearing climate by 2070.We found that fewer areas of PAs in the Boreal regions will experience disappearing climate in both the scenarios.Conclusions:The portion of novel climate conditions can be seen as a future opportunity to assign new reserves for the species.Our study highlights the importance of conservation planning to increase the connectivity between PAs,identifying novel conservation zones to maximize representation of habitats during the emerging climatic changes as well as designing strategies,management,and monitoring of the individual PAs.

Correction to: Predicting the effectiveness of protected areas of Natura 2000 under climate change

Correction to:Ecol Process https://doi.org/10.1186/s13717-019-0168-6 In the original publication of this article(Nila and Hossain 2019),co-authors‘Carl Beierkuhnlein,Anja Jaeschke and Samuel Hoffmann’need to be added to the author list.Additionally,two parts of the Declarations section below need to be updated。