Dataset for Literature Review from Integrating plant ecological responses to climate extremes from individual to ecosystem levels

Climate extremes will elicit responses from the individual to the ecosystem level. However, only recently have ecologists begun to synthetically assess responses to climate extremes across multiple levels of ecological organization. We review the literature to examine how plant responses vary and interact across levels of organization, focusing on how individual, population and community responses may inform ecosystem-level responses in herbaceous and forest plant communities. We report a high degree of variability at the individual level, and a consequential inconsistency in the translation of individual or population responses to directional changes in community- or ecosystem-level processes. The scaling of individual or population responses to community or ecosystem responses is often predicated upon the functional identity of the species in the community, in particular, the dominant species. Furthermore, the reported stability in plant community composition and functioning with respect to extremes is often driven by processes that operate at the community level, such as species niche partitioning and compensatory responses during or after the event. Future research efforts would benefit from assessing ecological responses across multiple levels of organization, as this will provide both a holistic and mechanistic understanding of ecosystem responses to increasing climatic variability.This article is part of the themed issue ‘Behavioural, ecological and evolutionary responses to extreme climatic events’.

气候极端事件将引发从个体到生态系统所有组织层级的生态响应。然而，生态学家直至近年才开始系统性综合评估不同生态组织层级对气候极端事件的响应。本研究综述相关文献，探究植物响应在不同组织层级间的变化与交互作用，重点聚焦草本与森林植物群落中，个体、种群和群落水平的响应如何揭示生态系统层面的响应规律。研究发现，个体水平的响应存在高度异质性，且将个体或种群响应推演至群落或生态系统过程的定向变化时，往往存在由此引发的显著不一致性。将个体或种群响应外推至群落或生态系统响应的尺度推演过程，通常取决于群落中物种的功能属性，尤其是优势物种的功能特征。此外，现有研究表明，植物群落组成与功能在极端事件下的稳定性，往往由群落层级的生态过程所驱动，例如事件发生期间及发生后的物种生态位分化与补偿性响应。未来的研究若能跨越多个组织层级开展生态响应评估，将有助于全面且机制性地理解生态系统对日益加剧的气候变异的响应规律。本文隶属于本期主题专栏《极端气候事件下的行为、生态与进化响应》。