Herbaceous encroachment from mountain birch forests to alpine tundra plant communities through above- and belowground competition

Abstract

Alpine plant communities are highly sensitive to global warming. One of the consequences of the warming is encroachment by herbaceous plants from forests at low elevations into alpine ecosystems. In the Changbai Mountains, narrowleaf small reed (Deyeuxia angustifolia (Kom.) Y. L. Chang) from mountain birch forests encroached upward into alpine tundra, gradually replacing native tundra shrubs such as Rhododendron (Rhododendron aureum Georgi). How encroaching plants affect native plant communities is not fully understood. In this study, we analyzed above- and belowground biomass of alpine plant communities at five encroachment levels to investigate how biomass allocation changed at species and community scales. Our research showed that native plants are forced to change their morphology to cope with competition, at both above- and belowground levels, from encroaching plants. We found that (1) R. aureum increased the shoot height and leaf area in order to compete with D. angustifolia; (2) above- and belowground biomass of D. angustifolia increased while above- and belowground biomass of R. aureum decreased with increasing levels of encroachment; and (3) D. angustifolia encroachment reduced the total biomass of alpine tundra. Encroachment by herbaceous plants has a long-term negative impact on the ability of tundra plants to sequester carbon in the alpine tundra of the Changbai Mountains.