Topographic depressions can provide climate and resource microrefugia for biodiversity

0582263 - BÚ 2024 RIV US eng J - Journal Article
Frei, K. - Vojtkó, A. - Farkas, T. - Erdös, L. - Barta, K. - E-Vojtkó, Anna - Tölgyesi, C. - Bátori, Z.
Topographic depressions can provide climate and resource microrefugia for biodiversity.
iScience. Roč. 26, č. 11 (2023), č. článku 108202. E-ISSN 2589-0042
Institutional support: RVO:67985939
Keywords : environmental science * nature conservation * plant ecology
OECD category: Ecology
Impact factor: 5.8, year: 2022
Method of publishing: Open access
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2023.108202

Microrefugia are often located within topographically complex regions where stable environmental conditions prevail. Most of the studies concerning the distributions of climate change-sensitive species have emphasized the dominance of cold air pooling over other environmental factors, such as resource availability. There is a shortage of information on the relationships among topography-related microsite diversity, microclimate, resource availability, and species composition in microrefugia. To fill this knowledge gap, we studied the effects of microclimatic conditions and soil resources on plant species occurrence within and adjacent to 30 large topographic depressions (i.e., dolines) in two distant karst regions. Our results showed that both microclimate and soil resource availability may play a key role in maintaining climate change-sensitive species and biodiversity in dolines, therefore, they may simultaneously act as climate and resource microrefugia. Establishing climate-smart conservation priorities and strategies is required to maintain or increase the refugial capacity of such safe havens.
Permanent Link: https://hdl.handle.net/11104/0350361