How frequent storms affect wetland vegetation: a preview of climate‐change impacts
2010
Zedler, Joy B.
Predicting how vegetation may change in response to an increasingly variable climate is difficult, but the analysis of observed responses to past climatic oscillations can inform the forecasting process. The consequences of multiple extreme events were recorded (1978–1998) for a California salt marsh. Ultimately, after less‐extreme decadal weather patterns were preceded by more‐extreme ones resulting from the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, six types of climate‐change‐related effects on vegetation became apparent. Among the identified effect types in this system, “sequential” (or event‐order‐dependent) effects were the most severe with regard to abrupt biodiversity losses. Similar outcomes could be applied to other ecosystems subjected to variable conditions. Managers and restoration ecologists need to anticipate the many ways in which extreme events can affect vegetation and use this knowledge to build resilience into restoration targets and plantings. A national program of adaptive restoration could first be applied in downstream wetlands, where the cumulative effects of flooding and sedimentation will cause vegetation to respond rapidly, and where adaptive approaches (eg futuristic assemblages) could be tested in large field experiments.
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