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Are mountaintops climate refugia for plants under global warming? A lesson from high-mountain oaks in tropical rainforest

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Abstract

Climate refugia are locations where plants are able to survive periods of regionally adverse climate. Such refugia may affect evolutionary processes and the maintenance of biodiversity. Numerous refugia have been identified in the context of Quaternary climate oscillations. With climate warming, there is an increasing need to apply insights from the past to characterize potential future refugia. Mountainous regions, due to the provision of spatially heterogeneous habitats, may contain high biodiversity, particularly important during climate oscillations. Here, we highlight the importance of mountaintops as climate refugia, using the example of high-mountain oaks which are distributed on the ranges of the Himalaya–Hengduan Mountains, and at high elevations in tropical rainforests. The occurrences of cold-adapted high-mountain oaks on mountaintops amidst tropical rainforest indicate that such locations are and will be climate refugia as global warming continues. We examine factors that predict the occurrence of future climate refugia on mountaintops using recognized historical refugia. Future research is needed to elucidate the fine-scale processes and particular geographic locations that buffer species against the rapidly changing climate to guide biodiversity conservation efforts under global warming scenarios.

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Acknowledgements

Prof. Jürg Stöcklin (Editor-in-Chief of Alpine Botany), Prof. Christian Parisod (Editor of Alpine Botany), and the three anonymous reviewers are gratefully acknowledged for their valuable suggestions and comments. This work is funded by Southeast Asia Biodiversity Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences (Y4ZK111B01); and Youth Innovation Promotion Association, Chinese Academy of Sciences (2018432) to H.-H. Meng.

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Author notes

  1. Hong-Hu Meng, Shi-Shun Zhou and Xiao-Long Jiang contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Plant Phylogenetics and Conservation Group, Center for Integrative Conservation, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, 650223, China

    Hong-Hu Meng, Lang Li & Jie Li

  2. Specimens and Germplasm Conservation Center, Center for Integrative Conservation, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Menglun, 666303, China

    Shi-Shun Zhou

  3. Shanghai Chenshan Plant Science Research Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 201602, China

    Xiao-Long Jiang

  4. Appalachian Laboratory, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, Frostburg, MD, 21532, USA

    Paul F. Gugger

  5. Plant Diversity and Conservation Group, Center for Integrative Conservation, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Menglun, 666303, China

    Yun-Hong Tan

  6. Southeast Asia Biodiversity Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nay Pyi Taw, 05282, Myanmar

    Hong-Hu Meng, Shi-Shun Zhou, Lang Li, Yun-Hong Tan & Jie Li

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  1. Hong-Hu Meng
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  2. Shi-Shun Zhou
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Contributions

HHM and JL conceived the study. HHM, SSZ, LL and YHT conducted field work. XLJ performed data analyses. HHM and PFG wrote the first draft of the manuscript. All of the authors contributed to and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Jie Li.

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Appendix S1. The fossil records of the high-mountain oaks (DOCX 19 kb)

35_2019_226_MOESM2_ESM.docx

Appendix S2. Environmental variables and percent contribution to construct species potential distributions used in this study (DOCX 19 kb)

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Meng, HH., Zhou, SS., Jiang, XL. et al. Are mountaintops climate refugia for plants under global warming? A lesson from high-mountain oaks in tropical rainforest. Alp Botany 129, 175–183 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00035-019-00226-2

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