TY - JOUR
T1 - Inconclusive Predictions and Contradictions
T2 - A Lack of Consensus on Seed Germination Response to Climate Change at High Altitude and High Latitude
AU - Jaganathan, Ganesh K.
AU - Dalrymple, Sarah E.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 Ganesh K. Jaganathan and Sarah E. Dalrymple.
PY - 2016
Y1 - 2016
N2 - Climate change directly affects arctic-alpine plants and acute responses to increased temperatures may be seen in their reproductive fitness and germination ability. However, uncertainties prevail in predicting whether a future warmer climate favors or hampers seed germination in high latitude and high altitude soils and seed germination research in such systems has not been able to provide generalizable patterns of response. The available literature on this subject has been conducted at various locations contributing to difficulties in predicting the response of arctic-alpine seeds to climate change. Here, we show that discrepancies in seed collection, dormancy breaking treatments, and germination conditions found in the published literature are possible reasons for our inability to draw large scale conclusions. We explore how these factors influence the results and highlight the fact that many of the previous investigations have reported the effects of warmer temperature, rather than a warmer climate and all the associated complex environmental interactions, on seed germination. We recommend that long-term monitoring of seed response to treatments that mimic the present and future alpine climate is likely to produce more ecologically meaningful insights and suggest several practical steps that researchers can take that would facilitate greater coherence between studies.
AB - Climate change directly affects arctic-alpine plants and acute responses to increased temperatures may be seen in their reproductive fitness and germination ability. However, uncertainties prevail in predicting whether a future warmer climate favors or hampers seed germination in high latitude and high altitude soils and seed germination research in such systems has not been able to provide generalizable patterns of response. The available literature on this subject has been conducted at various locations contributing to difficulties in predicting the response of arctic-alpine seeds to climate change. Here, we show that discrepancies in seed collection, dormancy breaking treatments, and germination conditions found in the published literature are possible reasons for our inability to draw large scale conclusions. We explore how these factors influence the results and highlight the fact that many of the previous investigations have reported the effects of warmer temperature, rather than a warmer climate and all the associated complex environmental interactions, on seed germination. We recommend that long-term monitoring of seed response to treatments that mimic the present and future alpine climate is likely to produce more ecologically meaningful insights and suggest several practical steps that researchers can take that would facilitate greater coherence between studies.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84971422377&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1155/2016/6973808
DO - 10.1155/2016/6973808
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84971422377
SN - 2090-0120
VL - 2016
JO - Journal of Botany
JF - Journal of Botany
M1 - 6973808
ER -