Climate change and other global change drivers threaten plant diversity in mountains worldwide. A widely documented response to such environmental modifications is for plant species to change their elevational ranges. Range shifts are often idiosyncratic and difficult to generalize, partly due to variation in sampling methods. There is thus a need for a standardized monitoring strategy that can be applied across mountain regions to assess distribution changes and community turnover of native and non-native plant species over space and time. Here, we present a conceptually intuitive and standardized protocol developed by the Mountain Invasion Research Network (MIREN) to systematically quantify global patterns of native and non-native species distributions along elevation gradients and shifts arising from interactive effects of climate change and human disturbance. Usually repeated every five years, surveys consist of 20 sample sites located at equal elevation increments along three replicate roads per sampling region. At each site, three plots extend from the side of a mountain road into surrounding natural vegetation. The protocol has been successfully used in 18 regions worldwide from 2007 to present. Analyses of one point in time already generated some salient results, and revealed region-specific elevational patterns of native plant species richness, but a globally consistent elevational decline in non-native species richness. Non-native plants were also more abundant directly adjacent to road edges, suggesting that disturbed roadsides serve as a vector for invasions into mountains. From the upcoming analyses of time series, even more exciting results can be expected, especially about range shifts. Implementing the protocol in more mountain regions globally would help to generate a more complete picture of how global change alters species distributions. This would inform conservation policy in mountain ecosystems, where some conservation policies remain poorly implemented.

Afromontane Research Unit and Department of Geography University of the Free State Qwaqwa Campus Phuthaditjhaba South Africa

Bioinvasions Global Change Macroecology Group Department of Botany and Biodiversity Research University of Vienna Vienna Austria

Chair of Biology and Biotechnologies Armenian National Agrarian University Yerevan Armenia

CREAF Cerdanyola del Vallès Spain

Departamento de Botánica Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Oceanográficas Universidad de Concepción Concepción Chile

Department of Biological Sciences University of Bergen Bergen Norway

Department of Biology and Biochemistry University of Houston Houston Texas USA

Department of Biology McGill University Montreal Quebec Canada

Department of Botany Amar Singh College Srinagar India

Department of Botany and Zoology Centre for Invasion Biology Stellenbosch University Matieland South Africa

Department of Botany Ecology and Plant Physiology University of La Laguna La Laguna Spain

Department of Botany University of Kashmir Srinagar India

Department of Ecology and Evolution University of Lausanne Lausanne Switzerland

Department of Ecology Environment and Evolution La Trobe University Bundoora Victoria Australia

Department of Environmental Sciences University of Basel Basel Switzerland

Department of Forest Ecology and Management Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences Umeå Sweden

Department of Geobotany and Plant Ecophysiology Institute of Botany aft A L Takhtajyan NAS RA Yerevan Armenia

Department of GIS and Remote Sensing Institute of Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences Průhonice Czech Republic

Department of Invasion Ecology Institute of Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences Průhonice Czech Republic

Department of Land Resource and Environmental Sciences Montana State University Bozeman Montana USA

Department of Planning Industry and Environment Jindabyne New South Wales Australia

Department of Planning Industry and Environment NSW Government Biodiversity and Conservation Queanbeyan New South Wales Australia

Department of Planning Industry and Environment Queanbeyan New South Wales Australia

German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research Halle Jena Leipzig Leipzig Germany

Global Mountain Biodiversity Assessment Institute of Plant Sciences University of Bern Bern Switzerland

Grupo de Ecología de Poblaciones de Insectos IFAB Bariloche Argentina

Grupo Ecología de Invasiones Instituto de Investigaciones en Biodiversidad y Medio Ambiente CONICET Universidad Nacional del Comahue Bariloche Argentina

Institute of Biology Geobotany and Botanical Garden Martin Luther University Halle Wittenberg Halle Germany

Institute of Biology Leiden Leiden University Leiden The Netherlands

Institute of Biology University of Neuchâtel Neuchâtel Switzerland

Institute of Earth Surface Dynamics and Department of Ecology and Evolution University of Lausanne Lausanne Switzerland

Institute of Ecology and Biodiversity Santiago Chile

Institute of Integrative Biology ETH Zürich Zürich Switzerland

Instituto Argentino de Nivología y Glaciología y Ciencias Ambientales CONICET Mendoza Mendoza Argentina

Key Laboratory of Geographical Processes and Ecological Security in Changbai Mountains Ministry of Education School of Geographical Sciences Northeast Normal University Changchun China

Laboratorio de Invasiones Biologicas Facultad de Ciencias Forestales Universidad de Concepción Concepción Chile

Laboratorio Ecotono INIBIOMA Bariloche Argentina

Research group Plants and Ecosystems University of Antwerp Wilrijk Belgium

Research Institute for Nature and Forest INBO Brussels Belgium

Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria Melbourne Victoria Australia

School of Education and Social Sciences Adventist University of Chile Chillán Chile

School of Life Sciences and Biotechnology Yachay Tech University Urcuquí Ecuador

School of Life Sciences University of Hawai'i at Manoa Honolulu Hawaii USA

Unitat d'Ecologia Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona Cerdanyola del Vallès Spain

UR Ecologie et Dynamique des Systèmes Anthropisés Université de Picardie Jules Verne Amiens France

US Forest Service PNW Research Station La Grande Oregon USA

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