Long-term monitoring of high-elevation terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems in the Alps – a five-year synthesis

Whether and how alpine organismic communities respond to ongoing environmental changes is difficult assess quantitatively, given their intrinsically slow responses, remote locations limited data. Here we provide a synthesis of the first five years multidisciplinary, highly standardized, long-term monitoring programme terrestrial aquatic ecosystems in Austrian Hohe Tauern National Park companion sites northern Italy central Swiss Alps. The aims at evidencing ecological state trends largely late-successional, high-elevation ecosystems. We present conceptual framework, study design results. Replicated over regions, different multitude permanent plots, abiotic (microclimate, physics chemistry soils water bodies), biodiversity (plants, animals, microbes), productivity data (alpine grassland, lakes, streams) representative reference for future re-assessments. wide spectrum biological baseline presented spatial temporal variation also illustrate degree uncertainty associated with smaller-scale short-term studies role stochasticity monitoring.