While the upward shift of plant species has been observed on many alpine and nival summits, the reaction of the subalpine and lower alpine plant communities to the current warming and lower snow precipitation has been little investigated so far. To this aim, 63 old, exhaustive plant inventories, distributed along a subalpine–alpine elevation gradient of the Swiss Alps and covering different plant community types (acidic and calcareous grasslands; windy ridges; snowbeds), were revisited after 25–50...