Reproductive ecology of Australian alpine plants

Climate change and the reproductive ecology of Australian alpine plants Alpine environments are extreme places for plants to grow and reproduce. Physical and biotic factors such as low temperatures, limited growing and flowering season, strong seasonality, highly variable conditions between years, and a limited diversity and abundance of pollinators all act as constraints on plants and its ability to reproduce and survive. Plants can exhibit a range of reproductive strategies that overcome these constraints. These include a perennial life history, opportunistic growth, over-wintering of flower primordia, self-compatibility, auto deposition of pollen, longevity of individual flowers, generalized pollinator syndromes and vegetative reproduction.

Predicted changes temperature and snow cover, will alter the constraints, potentially significantly increasing the duration of the flowering and growing season, increasing the variability of climatic conditions between years, and increasing the abundance and diversity of insects, both pollinators and herbivores. Climatic change may reduce the effectiveness of strategies currently exhibited by plants as the behavior becomes disassociated from the conditions under which it evolved. Potentially of greater significance, however, is how it alters the constraints imposed on others species, with the possibility of increased competition among alpine, sub-alpine and weed species.

This paper addresses changing constraints and strategies for four groups of plants:

• specialist alpine plants,
• generalist alpine species,
• weeds,
• subalpine/lowland species.