Abstract
ABSTRACT High elevation areas are sensitive and vulnerable to climate change and exhibited relatively rapid changes in response to warming involving changes of floristic composition, species upward migration, shrub and tree encroachment and surface area changes. For this reason, it is important to provide quantitative studies as tools allowing a long-term monitoring of vegetation in response to climate change. The Stelvio Pass area is a high elevation site located in the European Alps, and a unique case study on the alpine range providing historical detailed information on vegetation with the availability of phytosociological maps of vegetation elaborated in 1953 and 2003. Here we show and describe an updated and detailed phytosociological vegetation mapping which will constitute a robust base for the monitoring and quantitative assessment of any impacts of future climate and/or environmental change as well as a tool to plan suitable vegetation and biodiversity conservation actions in the alpine environment.
Highlights
High elevation areas are among the most sensitive and vulnerable environments to climate change with relevant impacts both on their biotic and abiotic components (e.g. IPCC, 2014)
The area mapped during summer 2018 occupied 581.5 ha and was located between 2230 and 3095 m, with more than 60% of the surfaces located between 2500 and 2800 m
Bare ground (BG), rock outcrops (Rock), streams and lakes were reported, for 49 total classes represented in the phytosociological map
Summary
High elevation areas are among the most sensitive and vulnerable environments to climate change with relevant impacts both on their biotic (e.g. vegetation) and abiotic (e.g. glaciers, permafrost) components (e.g. IPCC, 2014). It was assessed that shrub encroachment was related to climate change and not to land-use change by analysing the specific relation between shrub recruitment, climatic data and grazing data, indicating that shrub encroachment started in the late 1860s, at the end of the Little Ice Age (Malfasi & Cannone, 2020). In the last decades tree encroachment was observed in this area and it was assessed that it was promoted by the increase and persistence of warming with only a weak relation with grazing (Malfasi & Cannone, 2020)
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