Format: ORAL

Francesco Boscutti*1,2, Marco Vuerich1,2, Giacomo Trotta1,3, Alessandro Petraglia4, Enrico Braidot1, Marco Zancani1, Tai G.W. Forte4, Michele Carbognani4

1Department of Agricultural, Food, Environmental and Animal Sciences (DI4A), University of Udine, 33100 Udine, Italy 2NBFC, National Biodiversity Future Center, 90133 Palermo, Italy 3Department of Environmental and Life Sciences (DSV), University of Trieste, 34127 Trieste, Italy 4Department of Chemistry, Life Sciences and Environmental Sustainability, University of Parma, 43124 Parma, Italy *E-mail: francesco.boscutti@uniud.it

Climate change is causing remarkable impacts on plant species distribution and communities in cold biomes, with particular concern to arctic and alpine tundra. One prominent effect is the progressive increase of vegetation cover that is leading arctic and alpine greening, with far reaching consequences for the species persistence and the overall plant diversity. Nonetheless, the greening magnitude is expected to be significantly shaped by the increasing frequency of summer heat waves and drought, in the alpine domain as well. Climate change induces plants to acclimate by both morphological and physiological traits due to their phenotypic plasticity. A functional trait approach is hence crucial to foresee the responses of dominant species, whose changes could also affect the entire community and ecosystem functioning. To get new insight into the ecological mechanisms involved in these changes, it is important to promote innovative upscaling approaches, for linking field monitoring evidence to remote sensing data. We here present the results of a rain exclusion experiment conducted in alpine tundra (i.e. grasslands and dwarf shrub communities) in two localities of the eastern Alps. We measured individual growth and physiological traits, as well as community and ecosystem response to experimental treatments. Concurrently we carried out close-range and UAV (Unnamed Aerial Vehicle) multispectral surveys, obtaining remote sensing-derived vegetation indices for the upscaling of plant responses. We found that precipitation induced a trait-mediated plant community response affecting the ecosystem functional response. We also found remote sensing-derived indices to be related to the analyzed plant traits, showing promising perspectives for the upscaling of plant responses to drought. Our findings shed new light on the potential use of remote sensing tools for understanding of the response of alpine vegetation to the future climate scenarios, proving to be a promising method for long-term monitoring of such plant communities.