Abstract
The prospect of climatic change threatens to cause large changes in regional biomes. These effects could be in the form of qualitative changes within biomes, as well as spatial changes in the boundaries of biomes. The boundaries, or ecotones, between biomes have been suggested as potentially sensitive areas to climatic change and therefore useful for monitoring change. Regional gradients of vegetation habitat size and variability are explored for their utility in detecting ecotone location and movement as driven by climatic change. Maximal habitat variability, as indicated by differential survivorship of plants, occurs at the ecotones or transitions between biomes. The principles developed for the analysis of abrupt changes in spatial habitat patterns (ecotones) will also be considered for the analysis and detection of potentially abrupt physiognomic changes through time (thresholds) over large regions. Extensive regional changes in habitat variability could occur rapidly, indicating an impending ‘ecotone’ in time (threshold) over much of the region. Rapid, regional changes could produce significant negative impacts on biological diversity. The two types of change, boundary shifts of regions and physiognomic shifts within regions, are potentially independent and may require different monitoring strategies to detect impending change.
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Neilson, R.P. (1991). Climatic Constraints and Issues of Scale Controlling Regional Biomes. In: Holland, M.M., Risser, P.G., Naiman, R.J. (eds) Ecotones. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-9686-8_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-9686-8_3
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