Factors slowing down upward shifts of trees’ upper elevation limits

However, there might be large discrepancies between the speed of the upward shift of the climatic niche and the actual migration velocity of the species, especially in long-lived organisms such as trees.

Here, we compared the simulations of the upslope displacement of the bioclimatic envelope of 16 tree species inhabiting temperate mountain forests under ongoing and future climate change obtained by correlative species distribution models (SDMs) to those from a dynamic forest model accounting for dispersal, competition and demography. We then partitioned the discrepancy in upslope migration velocity between the SDMs and the dynamic forest model into different components by manipulating dispersal limitation, interspecific competition and demography.