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Science 27 June 2008:
Vol. 320. no. 5884, pp. 1768 - 1771
DOI: 10.1126/science.1156831
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Reports

A Significant Upward Shift in Plant Species Optimum Elevation During the 20th Century

J. Lenoir,1* J. C. Gégout,1 P. A. Marquet,2,3,4 P. de Ruffray,5 H. Brisse6

Spatial fingerprints of climate change on biotic communities are usually associated with changes in the distribution of species at their latitudinal or altitudinal extremes. By comparing the altitudinal distribution of 171 forest plant species between 1905 and 1985 and 1986 and 2005 along the entire elevation range (0 to 2600 meters above sea level) in west Europe, we show that climate warming has resulted in a significant upward shift in species optimum elevation averaging 29 meters per decade. The shift is larger for species restricted to mountain habitats and for grassy species, which are characterized by faster population turnover. Our study shows that climate change affects the spatial core of the distributional range of plant species, in addition to their distributional margins, as previously reported.

1 AgroParisTech, UMR 1092, Laboratoire d'Etude des Ressources Forêt-Bois (LERFoB), 14 rue Girardet, F-54000 Nancy, France.
2 Center for Advanced Studies in Ecology and Biodiversity (CASEB), Departamento de Ecologia, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Alameda 340 C.P. 6513677, Santiago, Chile.
3 Institute of Ecology and Biodiversity (IEB), Casilla 653, Santiago, Chile.
4 Santa Fe Institute, 1399 Hyde Park Road, Santa Fe, NM 87501, USA.
5 CNRS, Institut de Biologie Moléculaire des Plantes (IBMP), Université Louis Pasteur, 12 Rue du Général Zimmer, F-67084 Strasbourg Cedex, France.
6 CNRS, UMR 6116, Institut Méditerranéen d'Ecologie et de Paléoécologie (IMEP), Faculté des Sciences de Saint Jérôme, case 461, F-34397 Marseille Cedex 20, France.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: jonathan.lenoir{at}agroparistech.fr

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