Data from: Effects of climate and forest development on habitat specialization and biodiversity in Central European mountain forests
Creators: name: Richter, Tobias
name: Geres, Lisa
name: König, Sebastian
name: Braziunas, Kristin H
name: Senf, Cornelius
name: Thom, Dominik
name: Bässler, Claus
name: Müller, Jörg
name: Seidl, Rupert
name: Seibold, Sebastian
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2024
Subjects: elevation
altitudinal-niche-breadth hypothesis
Climate change
Conservation
forest dynamics
multi-trophic diversity
Biodiversity
specialisation

description: Mountain forests are biodiversity hotspots with competing hypotheses proposed to explain elevational trends in species richness. The altitudinal-niche-breadth-hypothesis suggests decreasing specialization with elevation, which could lead to decreasing species richness and weaker differences in species richness and beta diversity among habitat types with increasing elevation. Testing these predictions for bacteria, fungi, plants, arthropods, and vertebrates, we found decreasing habitat specialization (represented by forest developmental stages) with elevation in mountain forests of the Northern Alps – supporting the altitudinal-niche-breadth-hypothesis. Species richness decreased with elevation only for arthropods, whereas changes in beta diversity varied among taxa. Along the forest developmental gradient, species richness mainly followed a U-shaped pattern which remained stable along elevation. This highlights the importance of early and late developmental stages for biodiversity and indicates that climate change may alter community composition not only through distributional shifts along elevation but also across forest developmental stages.
description: Funding provided by: European Research CouncilROR ID: https://ror.org/0472cxd90Award Number: 101001905
Funding provided by: Bayerisches Staatsministerium für Umwelt und VerbraucherschutzROR ID: https://ror.org/02n53wv45Award Number:
description: We collected data from 14 taxonomic groups across 150 plots at Berchtesgaden National Park. For the selection of the study plots, we differentiated five forest development stages (gap, establishment, optimum, plenter, terminal) replicated ten times each across three elevation zones (submontane, montane, subalpine), ranging between 605 and 1725 m asl. Field sampling was conducted in 2021 and 2022. Bacterial and fungal communities in the soil were identified through metabarcoding of four soil samples from each plot, consisting of mineral and organic soil samples taken at approximately 3 m distance from the plot centre in each of the four cardinal directions. Percent cover of plants by species was recorded on a 200 m2 quadratic area, distinguishing the herb (<1 m height) and shrub layer (>1-5 m height). Arthropods from pitfall and light traps were identified by taxonomists, while those from Malaise traps were analysed by metabarcoding. Due to the different underlying species concepts, we analysed arthropods identified by taxonomists ("arthropodsTAX") and those identified by metabarcoding separately and refer to the latter as "insectsBIN", since insects made up 96% of all arthropod BINs in Malaise traps. We recorded birds through passive acoustic recorders in the morning hours around sunrise, and experts identified species based on these recordings. Bats were recorded using ultrasonic recorders, identified to species level through an automated software (batIdent, ecoObs, Nuremberg, Germany), and subsequently evaluated by an expert. Small mammals (i.e. mice, voles, dormice and shrews) were caught in pitfall traps and large mammals were recorded through wildlife cameras. We used LiDAR data from 2021 to quantify canopy cover at plot level (r = 12.62 m) as the proportion of returns above 5 m. To quantify microclimate, we used Tomst TMS‑4 loggers to record temperature every 15 minutes at -6, 2 and 15 cm at the plot centre.