AUTHOR=Unterholzner Lucrezia , Prendin Angela Luisa , Dibona Raffaella , Menardi Roberto , Casolo Valentino , Gargiulo Sara , Boscutti Francesco , Carrer Marco TITLE=Transient Effects of Snow Cover Duration on Primary Growth and Leaf Traits in a Tundra Shrub JOURNAL=Frontiers in Plant Science VOLUME=13 YEAR=2022 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/plant-science/articles/10.3389/fpls.2022.822901 DOI=10.3389/fpls.2022.822901 ISSN=1664-462X ABSTRACT=
With the recent climate warming, tundra ecotones are facing a progressive acceleration of spring snowpack melting and extension of the growing season, with evident consequences to vegetation. Along with summer temperature, winter precipitation has been recently recognised as a crucial factor for tundra shrub growth and physiology. However, gaps of knowledge still exist on long-living plant responses to different snowpack duration, especially on how intra-specific and year-to-year variability together with multiple functional trait adjustments could influence the long-term responses. To fill this gap, we conducted a 3 years snow manipulation experiment above the Alpine treeline on the typical tundra species