PARENT SESSION
Symposium 2: Climate Change and its Consequences on Coastal Dune Patterns and Processes: What Are the Future Perspectives?
Organized by: ML Martinez and P Moreno-Casasola
Monday, August 4. 9:00 AM to 11:30 AM, SITCC Chatham Ballroom B.

Plant functional types in response to global climate change.

Garcia-Novo, Francisco¹, Gallego-Fernandez, Juan Bautista¹, ¹ University of Seville, Sevilla, Sevilla, SPAIN

ABSTRACT- Plant functional types (PFTs) reveal the association patterns of plant organs exhibited by those species sharing a common environment, and PFT description is performed against a limited set of environmental variables. Vegetation response to climate change may be explored trough the forecast of changes in environmental variables and the PFTs response to them. Coastal dune fields are suitable areas to monitor global climate change because sea level rise, littoral current transport and sand movement, amplify climate fluctuations inducing broad changes to the plant environment. The Gulf of Cadiz (SW Spain) offers a coastal sector over 100 Km long dominated by sand beaches associated to dune fields. The vegetation of the area has been thoroughly studied and the PFTs have been described for high beach and embryo dunes, active and stabilized dune fields. To monitor climate change effects on vegetation, a test area has been chosen in the Gulf of Cadiz at the Rio Piedras estuary. It presents a spit 12 Km long and 300 to 700 m wide, with active dune fields and diverse coastal vegetation. The identification of PFTs and their associated environmental variables let the interpretation of successional processes in terms of species sequences, PFTs substitution and dominant physical processes (sand transport, soil salt leaching, groundwater availability, soil surface instability and others).The study of the dynamics of Rio Piedras spit, associated the environmental physical processes to the littoral evolution of the area. The relationships of spit building and sea level rise; river discharge and littoral transport have been established, thus linking PFTs to climate change effects. The contemporary patterns of PFTs distribution over the spit will be discussed against some climate change hypothesis.

Key words: climate change, plant functional types, dune vegetation