THEODORIDIS S.

Future climate change may lead to a substantial loss of biodiversity. Endemic plants are exposed at an increased extinction risk because they are likely more dispersal-limited, less genetically variable, thus less able to rapidly adapt to climate change than species with broader distribution. In plants, global warming can lead to changes in...

Three main hypotheses may explain the distribution of alpine and arctic endemic plants: a) distribution reduction follewed by a post-glacial expansion; b) distribution expansion follewed by a post-glacial reduction; c) stable distribution with ocal bufferig from extreme environmental effects. The theree hypotheses were tested in recent years on...