Timberline Paleoecology in the Alps

Timberline Paleoecology in the Alps

Holocene Timberline Fluctuations and Climate Variability Alpine life and landscapes are exposed to extreme environmental conditions. Avalanches, landslides and floods, due to extreme climatic events such as heavy snow and rain storms, can impact both wild and managed landscapes. Above timberline, climatic conditions are so harsh that they impede the growth of trees. According to one recent hypo...

Remote sensing of upper timberline elevation in the Alps on different scales

Natural timberlines are remarkable indicators of climate conditions. Although potential shifts of climate-driven natural borderlines are discussed in the recent climate change debate, maps of natural timberline elevation in the European Alps are rare and not concordant. Problems are caused primarily by the strong human impact on timberline positions in the Alps. In this paper, approaches for de...

Ozone Fluxes to a Larch Forest Ecosystem at the Timberline in the Italian Alps

PALEOECOLOGY PALEOECOLOGY PALEOECOLOGY Amazonian exploitation revisited: ecological asymmetry and the policy pendulum

© The Ecological Society of America www.frontiersinecology.org T first scientists to enter Amazonia encountered a wonderland of undescribed organisms living in what appeared to be unoccupied and untouched forest. Adjectives they used to describe the forest included “virgin”, “pristine”, and “timeless”, a vision which became incorporated into scientific thinking. Explanations of high Amazonian d...

How the timberline formed: altitudinal changes in stand structure and dynamics around the timberline in central Japan.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Altitudinal timberlines are thought to move upward by global warming, a crucial topic in ecology. Tall tree species (the conifer Abies mariesii and the deciduous broad-leaved Betula ermanii) dominate the sub-alpine zone between 1600 and 2500 m a.s.l., the timberline, on Mount Norikura in central Japan. Dwarf pine Pinus pumila dominates above the timberline to near the summit...