Abstracts

Range limit dynamics of biocrusts in a changing climate

by Max Reine

Climate change continues to drive a broad range of responses among the world’s biota. For example, there are plants that now flower earlier, animals that have evolved different camouflage, and many species that are shifting their ranges. Range shifting is well-documented for highly mobile taxa such as birds and insects, yet little is known about range shifting in species that form biocrusts—communities of lichens, non-vascular plants, and microbes that live on the soil surface and play important functional roles in nutrient cycling and erosion control. Another key theme of climate change ecology is that some species mediate the responses of other species, for example, by buffering the local microclimate or altering the cycling of nutrients. In line with these two themes, the aim of my thesis is to investigate: 1) what drives range limits in species of biocrust; 2) how biocrust species ranges have responded to recent climate change; 3) how biocrust species ranges are likely to respond to future climate change; and 4) how biocrust species mediate the effects of climate change on soil biota through microclimate buffering. I found that biocrust species are generally carbon limited at their arid range limits (Chapter 2), which suggests that range limits in biocrusts represent the point at which carbon budgets become unsustainable. Chapter 3 describes a field study comparing the modern and historical (25-year-old) distributions of three biocrust species, in which I found no evidence that any species have shifted in space to counteract climate warming. Global species distribution models show that the area of future suitable habitat is likely to be highly variable among biocrust species (Chapter 4), and accessing this habitat will require dispersal over considerable distances (4.6 km yr-1 on average). Finally, I found that tundra lichen mats play a major role in buffering high soil temperatures during summer (Chapter 5). The findings of this thesis are foundational for understanding the spatial aspect of biocrust responses to climate change and can be used to predict and mitigate losses of ecosystem functioning in areas where biocrust species are pushed beyond their niche limits.