Potential effects of climate change on plant communities in three montane nature reserves in Scotland, UK Mandar R. Trivedi a,b, * , Michael D. Morecroft c , Pamela M. Berry a , Terence P. Dawson d a Environmental Change Institute, Oxford University Centre for the Environment, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QY, United Kingdom b Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Lancaster Environment Centre, Library Avenue, Bailrigg, Lancaster LA1 4AP, United Kingdom c Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Maclean Building, Crowmarsh Gifford, Wallingford OX10 8BB, United Kingdom d School of Geography, University of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton SO17 1BJ, United Kingdom ARTICLE INFO Article history: Received 21 June 2007 Received in revised form 27 March 2008 Accepted 7 April 2008 Available online 27 May 2008 Keywords: Arctic-alpine plants Classification tree Grampian highlands Mountains Natura 2000 Special area of conservation Species distribution models Topography ABSTRACT Mountain ecosystems are often identified as being particularly sensitive to climate change, however this has rarely been investigated at the scale of individual mountain ranges using local relationships between plants and climate. This study uses fine resolution data to assess the potential changes to internationally important Arctic-alpine plant communities in three national nature reserves in the Scottish Highlands, United Kingdom. Distribution models were created for 31 species, representing a range of community types. A relation- ship between distribution and temperature was found for all species. These models were aggregated to explore potential future changes to each community under two Intergovern- mental Panel on Climate Change warming scenarios for the 2080s. The results indicate that Arctic-alpine communities in these reserves could undergo substantial species turnover, even under the lower climate change scenario. For example, Racomitrium-Carex moss- heath, a distinctive community type of the British uplands, could lose suitable climate space as other communities spread uphill. These findings highlight the need to maintain these communities in an optimal condition in which they can be most resilient to such change, to monitor them for signals of change and to develop more flexible conservation policies which account for future changes in mountain protected areas. Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Human activities during the Industrial period have warmed the climate and could lead to an increase in global average surface temperature of 1.1–6.4 °C by 2100, compared with an increase of around 0.76 °C over the last century (IPCC, 2007). The warming trend has affected ecosystems worldwide (Par- mesan, 2006) and mountain ecosystems are considered to be particularly sensitive due to the rapid change in climate with altitude and species’ close adaptations to the cold envi- ronment (Ko ¨ rner, 1999). For example, plants and animals have shifted to higher altitudes across Europe’s mountains (Grabh- err, 1994; Klanderud and Birks, 2003; Pen ˜ uelas and Boada, 2003; Walther et al., 2005; Wilson et al., 2005; Pauli et al., 2007). Due to the limited knowledge of species’ dynamic re- sponses to a changing environment, the potential effects of climate change are commonly projected using distribution models which are based on correlations between current dis- tributions and climate (Guisan and Zimmermann, 2000). Most studies use coarse resolution (e.g. 50 km · 50 km) data and are 0006-3207/$ - see front matter Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2008.04.008 * Corresponding author: Present address: Global Canopy Programme, John Krebs Field Station, University of Oxford, Wytham OX2 3QJ, United Kingdom. Tel.: +44 1865 724555. E-mail addresses: mandar.trivedi@gmail.com (M.R. Trivedi), mdm@ceh.ac.uk (M.D. Morecroft), pam.berry@eci.ox.ac.uk (P.M. Berry), t.p.dawson@soton.ac.uk (T.P. Dawson). BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION 141 (2008) 1665 – 1675 available at www.sciencedirect.com journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/biocon