Europes ecological backbone.pdf

Biodiversity
Box 8.3 Climate change and Europe's alpine plant diversity: the GLORIA long-term
observation network (cont.)
Vascular plant species richness (total and endemic species; data pooled from four summit sites per region)
is shown for the initial 18 GLORIA-Europe regions. Colours indicating the proportion of endemic species
(endemics in the wider sense, light blue; in the strict sense, dark blue) correspond with the homochromatic
distribution areas around a particular region.
Figure 8.5
The high-elevation GLORIA master site Mount Schrankogel (Tyrol, Austria)
Note:
The alpine–nival ecotone (approximately 2 900–3 200 m) is the transition zone between the upper alpine grassland
zone and the rock-, scree- and snow-dominated nival zone, where vegetation disintegrates into open plant
assemblages. Data from 362 permanent plots across the ecotone showed significant differential cover changes of
20 species (out of a total of 59) in relation to their vertical distribution ranges (blue: increase in cover, orange:
decrease in cover).
Source: Pauli et al., 2007.
During the present century, it is likely that Europe's
mountain flora will undergo major changes due
to climate change (Theurillat and Guisan, 2001;
Walther, 2004). Change in snow-cover duration
and growing season length should have much
more pronounced effects than direct effects of
temperature changes on metabolism (Grace et al.,
2002; Körner et al., 2003). Overall trends are towards
increased growing season, earlier phenology and
shifts of species distributions towards higher
elevations (Kullman, 2002; Körner et al., 2003;
Egli et al., 2004; Sandvik et al., 2004; Walther, 2004;
Casalegno et al., 2010). Similar shifts in elevation
are also documented for animal species (Hughes,
2000). However, the spatial scale of modelling
can strongly influence the predicted persistence
of suitable habitats (Trivedi et al., 2008; Randin
et al., 2009). Recent phenological work in the Alps
suggests a stronger advance of flowering phases at
high altitudes, with a tendency towards a stronger
altitudinal response in the northern than in the
southern Alps (Ziello et al., 2009).
Europe's ecological backbone: recognising the true value of our mountains
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