Rising plant extinction rates on European mountain summits

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By Johannes Wessely et al, Science. 

Summary by Bianca Lopez: Mountain-dwelling plant species are shifting upward with climate change, leading to concerns that species already at the highest elevations will go extinct due to warming or competition with species that encroach from below. Wessely et al. identified local extinctions across 16 European mountain regions using vegetation plots that were resampled multiple times across two decades. Species losses occurred more often at the lower-elevation portions of their ranges and were more frequent in years preceded by faster warming. Upward range shifts increased species richness but at the expense of higher-elevation species, with potential for extinction debts stretching into the future. Abundance declines predicted species losses, indicating that declines in species cover could be a useful indicator for future extinction.... 

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