关键词: 全球变化生态学, 早春类短命植物, 生态系统功能, 高寒山地, 敏感指示类群

Abstract: Under the serious challenges of intensifying global warming and increasing human activities, elucidating the responses of plant individuals, population dynamics, community structure, and ecosystem functions to environmental changes, as well as unrevealing the feedbacks among different ecological levels, have become a central theme in plant ecology. However, the high complexity of plant diversity often leads to fragmented research findings, making it difficult to generalize common patterns of plant responses to global change. Therefore, there is an urgent need to identify bioindicator taxa that are sensitively responsive to global change, so as to systematically the mechanisms by which plants regulate their responses across levels from individuals to ecosystem functions. Based on a comprehensive synthesis of extensive research on the responses of alpine plants and ecosystems to global change, this paper proposes that alpine early spring ephemeral plants can serve as a representative sensitive bioindicator group owing to their distinctive life history strategies, high environmental sensitivity, and pivotal roles in ecological network dynamics within alpine ecosystems. Specifically, this paper first outlines their unique life history strategies, characterized by both ruderal and stress-tolerance traits, along with their geographical distribution. Then, it reviews their responses to changes in key global change factors, including temperature, water availability, and nitrogen deposition, emphasizing their significant role as a sensitive bioindicator of hydrothermal changes. Furthermore, this paper analyzes the driving roles of early spring ephemeral plants in key ecological processes within fragile alpine mountain ecosystems, such as nutrient sequestration (e.g. the "Vernal Dam" effect), litter decomposition and utilization, facilitation of mycorrhizal symbiosis, and mediation of pollination network shifts induced by phenological mismatch, thereby revealing their potential as ecosystem engines driving ecological network dynamics. In summary, this paper advocates using alpine early spring ephemeral plants as a representative sensitive bioindicators to integrate individual responses, population adaptation and distribution, biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, providing a new perspective for revealing the feedback mechanisms among different ecological levels and advancing global change plant ecology.

Key words: global change ecology, early spring ephemeral plants, alpine mountain, sensitive bioindicator group, ecosystem functioning