Across the world's ecosystems, alpine areas are regarded as climate change hotspots due to the vulnerability of the species that have adapted to live in the cold, harsh environment (Hoegh-Guldberg et al., 2018). For example, in European mountains, temperature warming has been particularly marked in recent decades, especially in spring and summer (Gobiet et al., 2014; Rottler et al., 2019; Kotlarski et al., 2023), leading to a decline in the depth and duration of snow cover (Marty et al., 2017; Matiu et al., 2021) and an intensification of summer drought (Scherrer et al., 2022). Future climate projections indicate that alpine regions will experience more extreme weather events, such as increased frequency and severity of heat waves (Schär et al., 2004; Beniston, 2007; Gobiet et al., 2014) and drought (Calanca, 2007).
The increasing temperatures will also lead to the response of alpine plants to climatic stress, particularly in the context of future warmer and more drought-prone upland environments. Plant responses to climatic changes are wide-ranging and complex and depend on numerous factors such as life stage, maternal effects, previous stress experienced and the degree of environmental heterogeneity (see Parmesan and Hanley, 2015 for a review). In alpine species, a recurrent effect of temperature warming is to shift seedling emergence (Mondoni et al., 2015; Wang et al., 2018); alter flowering phenology (Tot