Seed longevity could predicts alpine plant resilience to climate warming

Margherita Tognela ¹, Francesco Porro ², Silvano Lodetti ¹, Fiona Jane White ³, Graziano Rossi ⁴, Veronica Maresca ⁴, Sergey Rosbakh ⁵, Andrea Mondoni ⁶

University of Pavia, Pavia 27100, Italy. ¹, IGG CNR Pavia, Pavia. Italy ², Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Bozen-Bolzano 39100, Italy ³, University of Pavia, Pavia 27100, Italy ⁴, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark ⁵, University of Pavia, Pavia 27100, Italy. National Biodiversity Future Center (NBFC), Palermo 90133, Italy. ⁶

Alpine biomes are warming faster than the global average (Auer et al., 2007), altering the physiology, distribution and community composition of alpine plants (Sandvik et al., 2004; Lenoir et al., 2008; Gottfried et al., 2012; Mondoni et al., 2015). Despite this, most existing studies focus more on reporting patterns than on mechanistic explanations of observed changes. In the harsh and highly variable climate of alpine environments, persistence plays an important role in both plant population and community dynamics, allowing plants to withstand or survive unsuitable habitat conditions (Grime, 2002; García & Zamora, 2003; Ozinga et al., 2007). One of the strategies that plants can exploit to persist in situ is to produce long-lived seeds (García & Zamora, 2003; Laiolo & Obeso, 2017). Ecological theory predicts that plants with long-lived seeds should exhibit greater resilience to climate change, but this possibility has not yet been empirically studied. Here, we test the hypothesis that species increasing in abundance tend to produce longer-lived seeds, than species showing a decline. To this end, we used the half-viability period (p50) as a proxy for the seeds’ ability to withstand climate-change related stress, estimated through accelerated aging experiments (Newton et al., 2009). Long-term population dynamics were quantified using the non-parametric Cliff’s Delta effect size index (Cliff, 1996), calculated from 20 years of plant population monitoring across four Italian target regions of the GLORIA project (Lodetti et al., 2024). The results confirmed our hypothesis, with declining species showing a significantly lower seed longevity, compared to species showing an increase in abundance over the past two decades. These findings provide insights into the mechanisms driving alpine vegetation changes in response to climate warming and enhance predictions of future species composition in montane ecosystems. Furthermore, understanding the role of seed longevity in species persistence can inform conservation strategies, improve vulnerability assessments, and guide restoration efforts in climate-sensitive habitats.

Main author career stage: PhD student

Contribution type: Talk

First choice session: 3. Biodiversity and global change

Second choice session: 2. Ecology