Dramatic response to climate change in the Southwest: Robert Whittaker's 1963 Arizona Mountain plant transect revisited
@article{Brusca2013DramaticRT, title={Dramatic response to climate change in the Southwest: Robert Whittaker's 1963 Arizona Mountain plant transect revisited}, author={R. Brusca and J. F. Wiens and W. M. Meyer and Jeff A. Eble and K. Franklin and J. Overpeck and W. Moore}, journal={Ecology and Evolution}, year={2013}, volume={3}, pages={3307 - 3319} }
Models analyzing how Southwestern plant communities will respond to climate change predict that increases in temperature will lead to upward elevational shifts of montane species. We tested this hypothesis by reexamining Robert Whittaker's 1963 plant transect in the Santa Catalina Mountains of southern Arizona, finding that this process is already well underway. Our survey, five decades after Whittaker's, reveals large changes in the elevational ranges of common montane plants, while mean… CONTINUE READING
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