20.500.12556/RUL-184139 Contrasting thermophilization among forests, grasslands and alpine summits ABSTRACT: Climate warming is shifting biological communities, with warmth-demanding species being favoured at the expense of cold-adapted species in a process referred to as thermophilization1,2,3,4. Because biodiversity responses often lag behind climate warming, climatic debts are accumulating in many ecosystems across the world5,6,7. Although we might expect that thermophilization and climatic debts will vary among habitats, standardized quantification across ecosystems is lacking. Here we analysed multidecadal data from 6,067 resurveyed vegetation plots over 12–78 years in forests, grasslands and on alpine summits across Europe. We demonstrate that forest understory and grassland plant communities experienced positive thermophilization, although not significantly different from zero. By contrast, alpine summit vegetation showed much stronger (up to five times) and significant thermophilization. Thermophilization was driven largely by increases in warmth-demanding species in grasslands, by declines in cold-adapted species on alpine summits and by both processes in forests. Significant climatic debts have accumulated in forests and alpine summits, but less so in grasslands, with debts positively correlated with macroclimate temperature changes. Our findings uncover divergent thermophilization trajectories and increasing climatic debts across ecosystems. Moreover, we highlight the mechanisms that enable some communities to track climate change more closely than others and provide a basis for projecting future shifts in plant communities under accelerating climate warming. climate-change impacts community ecology vplivi podnebnih sprememb sinekologija true false true Angleški jezik Slovenski jezik Članek v reviji 2026-06-30 14:51:04 2026-06-30 14:51:06 2026-07-02 03:30:19 0000-00-00 00:00:00 2026 0 0 [29] str. no. 8115 Vol. 653 21 May 2026 0000-00-00 PostprintKoncna Objavljeno NiDoloceno 0000-00-00 0000-00-00 0000-00-00 2026-09-18 504.7:581.524 1476-4687 10.1038/s41586-025-09622-7 272822275 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09622-7 1 4580e5e3-7482-11f1-9b0d-0050569b8976 https://repozitorij.uni-lj.si/Dokument.php?lang=slv&id=236658 Biotehniška fakulteta 0 0 0