GLORIA 2019 Update

This article was originally published in The Midden – Great Basin National Park: Vol. 19, No. 1, Summer 2019.

Wheeler sandwort (Eremogone congesta var. wheelerensis) only occurs on a few peaks in eastern Nevada.

Photo by Jan Nachlinger

by Meagan Oldfather, Jan Nachlinger, Brian Smithers, GLORIA-Great Basin Organizers

GLORIA (Global Observation Research Initiative in Alpine Environments) is a collaborative network with a shared methodology for surveying alpine summits across the globe. The main objective of GLORIA is to assess global distributional shifts of alpine species in response to climate changes. It is a tremendous effort with over 100 alpine areas in the global network.

The local non-profit GLORIA Great Basin leads the effort at eight of these areas in eastern California and Nevada.

In collaboration with Great Basin National Park, GLORIA Great Basin coordinates the field survey work and data management in the southern Snake Range. This area is the heart of the Great Basin and offers a unique area in comparison with several other western-edge Great Basin sites located in the White Mountains, Sweetwater Mountains, and Dunderberg Peak area, the latter situated at the transition of central Sierra Nevada-western Great Basin biogeography.

Here at Great Basin National Park, there are four GLORIA study peaks (Buck Mountain, Bald Mountain, Pyramid Peak, and Wheeler Peak) which were established in 2008, and have been resurveyed in 2013 and 2018. From Buck Mountain at 3,347 m elevation, where tree line transitions to an alpine environment, to the shoulder of Wheeler Peak at 3,981 m elevation, the four peaks have similar local climates and geologic substrates.

Holmgren wild buckwheat (Eriogonum holmgrenii) is one of three plants that is endemic to high elevations in Great Basin National Park.

Photo by Jan Nachlinger

The alpine flora of these peaks is quite noteworthy for unique species, common Rocky Mountain species not found at the western Great Basin sites, and for ubiquitous high elevation plants common across North American sites.

First, the overall species richness of the flora is somewhat less than, but comparable, to the sites in the western Great Basin, and many species are in common. There are at least fourteen plant species that do not occur in any of the other seven areas targeted by GLORIA Great Basin. Among them are eight plant taxa with affinities to the Rocky Mountains rather than the Sierra Nevada (these two peripheral ranges are major source areas contributing to the desert mountains regional flora between them). Buck Mountain harbors two Rocky Mountain conifers, Juniperus communis var. depressa (dwarf juniper), and the tree line species Picea engelmannii (Engelmann spruce), as well as the herb Mertensia franciscana (Franciscan bluebells), which apparently only occurs in Nevada in the Snake Range. Additionally, five showy Rocky Mountains alpine plants are found on one or all four peaks: Geum rossii var. turbinatum (alpine avens), Polemonium viscosum (sticky sky pilot), Primula parryi (Parry primrose), Silene acaulis (moss pink), and the uncommon Erigeron grandiflorus (largeflower fleabane), which currently is only known from Nevada in the Snake Range.

Three unusual perennial plants are noteworthy here because they have restricted distributions to the eastern Great Basin. Eremogone congesta var. wheelerensis (Wheeler sandwort) and Penstemon leiophyllus var. francisci-pennellii (smoothleaf beardtongue) only occur in a few of eastern Nevada’s high ranges, while Potentilla holmgrenii (Holmgren cinquefoil) only occurs in two eastern Nevada ranges and a neighboring range in western Utah.

Conducting a GLORIA resurvey takes a team. Plots are laid out and then botanists survey the area to find what plants live there.

Photo by Brian Smithers

However, the coolest of Great Basin National Park’s GLORIA plants are the three perennial taxa that only occur at high elevations in the Snake Range and nowhere else—they are Snake Range (and Great Basin National Park) high elevation endemics. These plants are vulnerable to climate change because there is very little alpine real estate where they currently exist and we do not know how successfully they might be able to hold on with other species potentially moving up mountain slopes in response to warming or drying conditions. They are Draba serpentina (Snake Range whitlowcress), Eriogonum holmgrenii (Holmgren wild buckwheat), and Potentilla hookeriana var. charletii (Charlet cinquefoil).

GLORIA Great Basin is grateful to the many people who first established these surveys. Ann Dennis was the GLORIA coordinator for the first team to select sites and establish plots along with Gretchen Baker and Meg Horner from the National Park Service. Glenn Clifton, independent botanist, has been involved with every survey and his flora of the South Snake Range has been very helpful (Clifton 2012). Great Basin National Park has contributed both personnel time, field logistics, and equipment to this effort which is greatly appreciated by GLORIA Great Basin.

One of the main objectives of GLORIA Great Basin is to not only continue these resurveys into the future, but also analyze the resurvey data to understand how alpine plant communities vary spatially and temporally.

Alpine plants have been recognized as early indicators of plant community responses to a changing climate, with both amplified warming and community change at higher elevation relative to lower elevation (Bertrand et al. 2011; Pepin et al. 2015). Many recent studies, including those using GLORIA data from other sites, have found that species richness (total number of species) has increased with warming (Steinbauer et al. 2018).

However, there is some evidence that this pattern may be muted or even reversed in water-limited alpine systems (Pauli et al. 2012), such as in the drier Great Basin National Park peaks. This increase in richness with warming has been hypothesized to be driven by more warm-adapted low elevation or sub-alpine species moving upslope, as well as a lag in the competitive exclusion of obligate alpine species (Lamprecht et al. 2018). Although we have yet to examine the temporal dynamics of the Great Basin National Park peaks, we hope to be able to report back soon with more analyses, so stay tuned! Also, if you are interested in becoming involved with the GLORIA plant surveys in any capacity please contact us at: gloriagreatbasin@ gmail.com.

_{Literature Cited:
Bertrand, R., Lenoir, J., Piedallu, C., Dillon, G.R., De Ruffray, P., Vidal, C., et al. (2011). Changes in plant community composition lag behind climate warming in lowland forests. Nature
Clifton, G. 2012. Flora of the South Snake Range (with photos). Unpublished document. 365pp.
Lamprecht, A., Semenchuk, P.R., Steinbauer, K., Winkler, M. & Pauli, H. (2018). Climate change leads to accelerated transformation of high-elevation vegetation in the central Alps. New Phytol.
Pauli, H., Gottfried, M., Dullinger, S., Abdaladze, O., Luis, J., Alonso, B., et al. (2012). Recent Plant Diversity Changes on Europe ’ s Mountain Summits. Science
Pepin, N., Bradley, S., Diaz, H.., Baraer, E.B., Caceres, N., Forsythe, H., et al. (2015). Elevation-dependent warming in mountain regions of the world. Nat. Clim. Chang
Steinbauer, M.J., Grytnes, J.-A., Jurasinski, G., Kulonen, A., Lenoir, J., Pauli, H., et al. (2018). Accelerated increase in plant species richness on mountain summits is linked to warming. Nature}