Informatics Publishing Limited

Priyanka Agnihotri ¹, Tariq Husain ¹, Pramod Arvind Shirke ², Om Prakash Sidhu ³, Harsh Singh ¹, Veena Dixit ¹, Anzar Ahmad Khuroo ⁴, Devindra Vijay Amla ⁵, Chandra Shekhar Nautiyal ⁶

Affiliations
1 Plant Diversity, Systematics and Herbarium Division, CSIR-National Botanical Research Institute, Lucknow-226 001, IN
2 Plant Physiology Department, CSIR-National Botanical Research Institute, Lucknow-226 001, IN
3 Phytochemistry Department, CSIR-National Botanical Research Institute, Lucknow-226 001, IN
4 Centre for Biodiversity and Taxonomy, Department of Botany, University of Kashmir, Srinagar-190 006, IN
5 CSIR-National Botanical Research Institute, Lucknow 226 001, IN
6 Division of Plant Microbial Interactions, CSIR-National Botanical Research Institute, Lucknow 226 001, IN

Abstract

As broad-scale distributions of plants are shaped by climatic conditions, changes of climate necessarily result in shifts of distributional limits. These shifts are closely coupled with changes in plant ecophysiology, growth and productivity. Among environments subjected to the highest increase in temperature in the last decade and the greatest expected warming predicted for the future, high-mountain biomes belong to the most frequently considered. Evidence for distributional shifts has been mostly documented in European and American mountains, while the largest and highest mountainous areas are located in Asia. The present study aims to detect climate change-driven shifts in elevation and ecophysiological traits of endemic herb species of Himalaya with the help of herbarium specimens as potential tool. We observed significant rapid upward elevational shift of 55.2 m/decade compared to average global shifting of 6.1 m/decade and impulsive variations in secondary metabolite concentration. Significant negative relationship was found for stomatal density, δ¹³C with the lapse of years. Analysis of instrumental temperature data reveals an increase of 0.31°C in mean maximum and 0.79°C in mean minimum temperature during the last century.

Keywords

Climate Change, Distributional Shift, δ¹³C, Himalayan Plants, Metabolites, Stomatal Density.

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