Climate-driven range shifts in alpine plants

Mountains can harbor high levels of biodiversity and endemism, but are also warming faster than the global mean, forcing many plants to shift their geographical ranges. These range shifts, however, are often slower than the rate of climate change, creating lags between species’ observed and expected ranges if they fully tracked climate change. What are the dynamics of range shifts under climate change and what are the consequences of range lags for alpine plants?

I am studying climate-driven range lags in alpine plants across Europe over the last six decades of climate change with Sabine Rumpf at the University of Basel. We have assembled a Europe-wide database of ~9,000 plant species, spanning over 120 years and containing ~105 million observations. I am using this database to build species distribution models (SDMs) to quantify the dynamics of range shifts with recent climate change. This research is revealing how plants are responding to climate change and lays the groundwork for forecasting future range dynamics.