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Reliability of presence-only data for assessing plant community responses to climate warming
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  • Laura Camila Pacheco Riaño,
  • Sabine Rumpf,
  • Tuija Maliniemi,
  • Suzette Flantua,
  • Jon-Arvid Grytnes
Laura Camila Pacheco Riaño
University of Gothenburg

Corresponding Author:pachecoriano.c@gmail.com

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Sabine Rumpf
University of Basel
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Tuija Maliniemi
University of Oulu
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Suzette Flantua
University of Bergen
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Jon-Arvid Grytnes
Universitetet i Bergen Institutt for Biologi
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Abstract

Climate warming has triggered shifts in plant distributions, resulting in changes within communities, characterized by an increase in warm-demanding species and a decrease in cold-adapted species - referred to as thermophilization. Researchers conventionally rely on co-occurrence data from vegetation assemblages to examine these community dynamics. Despite the increasing availability of presence-only data in recent decades, their potential has largely remained unexplored due to concerns about their reliability. Our study aimed to determine whether climate-induced changes in community dynamics, as inferred from presence-only data from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), corresponded with those derived from co-occurrence plot data in Norway. To assess the differences between these datasets, we quantified a Community Temperature Index (CTI) from the co-occurrence data set and compared this with CTI obtained from presence-only data. We also examined the temporal trend in CTI (i.e., thermophilization) in both datasets. To do this, we first established a species-temperature relationship based on data before climate warming. In a preliminary analysis, we assessed the performance of this relationship using three datasets: 1) Norwegian co-occurrence data, 2) presence-only data from a broader European region organized into pseudo-plots (potentially capturing more species niches), and 3) a combined dataset merging 1) and 2). The transfer function including both datasets performed best. Subsequently, we compared the CTI for the co-occurrence plots paired up spatially and temporally with presence-only pseudo-plots. The results demonstrated that presence-only data can effectively evaluate species assemblage responses to climate warming, with consistent CTI and thermophilization values in comparison to co-occurrence data. Employing presence-only data for evaluating community responses opens up better spatial and temporal resolution and much more detailed analyses of such responses, our results therefore outline how a large amount of presence-only data can be used to enhance our understanding of community dynamics in a warmer world.
03 Nov 2023Submitted to Ecography
03 Nov 2023Submission Checks Completed
03 Nov 2023Assigned to Editor
03 Nov 2023Review(s) Completed, Editorial Evaluation Pending
14 Nov 2023Reviewer(s) Assigned
01 Feb 20241st Revision Received
01 Feb 2024Submission Checks Completed
01 Feb 2024Assigned to Editor
01 Feb 2024Review(s) Completed, Editorial Evaluation Pending
04 Mar 2024Submission Checks Completed
04 Mar 2024Assigned to Editor
05 Mar 2024Editorial Decision: Accept