Assumptions that correlations of climate and natural vegetation are also causal underlie the use of general circulation models (GCMs) for predicting vegetation change at a national or global scale. Yet direct links between macroclimate and plant distribution are difficult to demonstrate. Studies of vegetation change in the pre-Pleistocene past and invasions of pine trees in the present indicate that the effects of climate are seldom direct. Vegetation change is most often caused by changes in disturbance regime or in competitive interactions, especially at the seedling stage. We argue that population-level studies, using predictions of climate effects on productivity of different growth forms and the (limited) knowledge of climate effects on reproductive biology, offer an important alternative to predicting and coping with climate change.
BOND, WJ; RICHARDSON, DM
WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM EXTINCTIONS AND INVASIONS ABOUT THE EFFECTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE
South African Journal Of Science