caa a22 4500 44536744X CHVBK 20180317142935.0 cr unu---uuuuu 170323e20110701xx s 000 0 eng 10.1007/s00484-010-0364-7 doi (NATIONALLICENCE)springer-10.1007/s00484-010-0364-7 Elevational species shifts in a warmer climate are overestimated when based on weather station data [Elektronische Daten] [Daniel Scherrer, Samuel Schmid, Christian Körner] Strong topographic variation interacting with low stature alpine vegetation creates a multitude of micro-habitats poorly represented by common 2m above the ground meteorological measurements (weather station data). However, the extent to which the actual habitat temperatures in alpine landscapes deviate from meteorological data at different spatial scales has rarely been quantified. In this study, we assessed thermal surface and soil conditions across topographically rich alpine landscapes by thermal imagery and miniature data loggers from regional (2-km2) to plot (1-m2) scale. The data were used to quantify the effects of spatial sampling resolution on current micro-habitat distributions and habitat loss due to climate warming scenarios. Soil temperatures showed substantial variation among slopes (2-3K) dependent on slope exposure, within slopes (3-4K) due to micro-topography and within 1-m2 plots (1K) as a result of plant cover effects. A reduction of spatial sampling resolution from 1 × 1m to 100 × 100m leads to an underestimation of current habitat diversity by 25% and predicts a six-times higher habitat loss in a 2-K warming scenario. Our results demonstrate that weather station data are unable to reflect the complex thermal patterns of aerodynamically decoupled alpine vegetation at the investigated scales. Thus, the use of interpolated weather station data to describe alpine life conditions without considering the micro-topographically induced thermal mosaic might lead to misinterpretation and inaccurate prediction. ISB, 2010 Alpine nationallicence Soil temperature nationallicence Spatial scale nationallicence Suitable climate space nationallicence Surface temperature nationallicence Thermometry nationallicence Scherrer Daniel Institute of Botany, University of Basel, Schönbeinstrasse 6, 4056, Basel, Switzerland aut Schmid Samuel Institute of Plant, Animal and Agroecosystem Sciences, ETH Zurich, Universitätsstrasse 2, 8092, Zurich, Switzerland aut Körner Christian Institute of Botany, University of Basel, Schönbeinstrasse 6, 4056, Basel, Switzerland aut International Journal of Biometeorology Springer-Verlag 55/4(2011-07-01), 645-654 0020-7128 55:4<645 2011 55 484 https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-010-0364-7 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-010-0364-7 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Scherrer Daniel Institute of Botany, University of Basel, Schönbeinstrasse 6, 4056, Basel, Switzerland aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Schmid Samuel Institute of Plant, Animal and Agroecosystem Sciences, ETH Zurich, Universitätsstrasse 2, 8092, Zurich, Switzerland aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Körner Christian Institute of Botany, University of Basel, Schönbeinstrasse 6, 4056, Basel, Switzerland aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- International Journal of Biometeorology Springer-Verlag 55/4(2011-07-01), 645-654 0020-7128 55:4<645 2011 55 484 Metadata rights reserved Springer special CC-BY-NC licence nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-springer