Abstract ID: 3.11003 | Accepted as Talk | Talk/Oral | TBA | TBA

High elevation mountain plants are expected to be increasingly threatened by rising temperatures because they are cold adapted dwarf-growing plants with weak competitive abilities, usually having small and often fragmented distribution areas. Effects of climate driven upwards shifts of species have been repeatedly documented in the form of increasing species numbers, but less commonly as species declines and local extinctions. In this study we use a ~30-year time-series of vegetation change documented by permanent plot series at the upper alpine to nival zone of Mt. Schrankogel in the central Tyrolean Alps. These plots (several hundred quadrats of 1m²) were re-surveyed every decade by recording all vascular plant species and their percentage cover. In addition, we used data such as soil temperature measured at over 900 randomly distributed vegetation plots on the same mountain to derive thermal niches of species. We focus on increases and decreases of species cover, specifically if previously observed declines have continued over the study period, and if the patterns of gains and losses are related to the thermal niches of species.