How fast are larch trees migrating across the treeline
border in Siberia under recently increasing temperatures?
– results from a combined approach of genetics and modelling –
Ecology Across Borders: Joint Annual Meeting 2017 December 11 – 14, Ghent, Belgium
Stefan Kruse
Alexander Gerdes, Nadja Kath, Laura Epp, Kathleen Stoof-
Leichsenring, Luidmila Pestryakova, Ulrike Herzschuh
Siberian treeline
GLOBCOVER2009 map: Julius Schröder
Treeline
Summergreen Evergreen
North
South
Stefan Kruse M. Wieczorek
quasi-equilibrium with climate
Climate warming
response of treeline in warming climate?
after Bonan 2008
densification & migration
albedo decrease (+) evaporative cooling (-)
carbon storage (-)
NASA/GISTEMP
1951-2016
°C
-1.0 0 +1 +2 +4
strongest warming in the Arctic
Vegetation feedbacks
LAVESI
Methods
Genetics
Population genetics
Parentage analysis
Field work
Stand structure
Recruitment pattern
Modelling
Model design &
parameterisation
Simulation
experiments
Focus area
Larch forest
northernmost treeline at
the Taymyr Peninsula
The LArix VEgetation SImulator
Environment
•abiotic = weather
•biotic = competition
Growth
Seed production
Seed dispersal Establishment
Mortality &
ageing
spatially explicit
process-based
experiments
plots
transects
Kruse et al., 2016
Local seed dispersal
~60% on-site recruitment
more realistic results
with adapted model
Transect simulations
Migration simulations
+2°C
0 1 km
0
5 km
ref
Migration simulations
0 1 km
0 5 km
currently only slow advance (0.5 m yr
-1)
increased rate in higher temperatures
Conclusions
short seed dispersal distances
seed limitation hinders
colonisation
very slow migration rate
lag strongly
behind climate
warming
References
• Bonan, G. B. 2008. “Forests and Climate Change: Forcings, Feedbacks, and the Climate Benefits of Forests.” Science320 (5882) (June 13): 1444–1449. doi:10.1126/science.1155121.
• Bontemps, S., Defourny, P., Bogaert, E. V., Arino, O., Kalogirou, V., & Perez, J. R. (2011).
GLOBCOVER 2009-Products description and validation report.
• GISTEMP Team, (2016): GISS Surface Temperature Analysis (GISTEMP). NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Dataset accessed 2017-10-11 at https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/.
• IPCC 2013 - Stocker, T. (Ed.). (2014). Climate change 2013: the physical science basis: Working Group I contribution to the Fifth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press.
• Kruse, Stefan, et al. "Treeline dynamics in Siberia under changing climates as inferred from an individual-based model for Larix." Ecological Modelling 338 (2016): 101-121.
