Examining changes in plant communities of alpine fellfield meadows of the White Mountains

Alpine meadows are havens of biodiversity and limiting resources, especially in arid and semi-arid climate zones. With climate change exacerbating the seasonal variation of moisture and temperature, such havens continue to shift upward and reduce in range, disrupting vital habitats that endemic organisms rely on. We examined plant communities of three alpine fellfield meadows in the White Mountains of California by conducting a follow-up survey to a baseline assessment performed in 2006 (Ababneh and Woolfenden 2010) of two meadows and surveying an additional meadow to expand the scope of the study. Our analysis focuses specifically on how climate change influences meadow plant communities over time, as well as examining shifts in their reproductive phenology. From these methods, we found plant communities of the original two meadows changed over time with the driest meadow resulting in the greatest local extinction of wetland species and an overall increase in upland affinity species from 2006 to 2018. Additionally, there were abnormal temporal patterns in the reproductive phenology of many forbs, with some blooming before and some after their expected bloom time. This resurvey demonstrates the importance of conducting baseline studies in alpine meadow habitats that may disappear over time and highlights the role of moisture and precipitation patterns in predicting shifts of plant community dynamics.