BACKGROUND Traditional agro-pastoral practices are in decline over much of the Alps (MacDonald et al. 2000), leading to shrub and tree encroachment, and this represents one of the main threats for the conservation of alpine biodiversity, as many plant and animal species are dependent on the presence of semi-natural open habitats. However, quantifying this environmental change and assessing its ...

The Isère River system drains parts of the Western Alps in south-eastern France. Zircon fission-track data of the Isère River and its tributaries show a range of apparent cooling ages from about 7 to 150 Ma. Zircons with Jurassic to early Tertiary cooling ages are derived from partially reset or non-reset sedimentary cover units of the internal and external Alps, while grains belonging to the m...

DNA ploidy levels were estimated using DAPI-flow cytometry of silica-dried specimens of the European mountain plant Senecio carniolicus (Asteraceae), covering its entire distribution area in the Eastern Alps (77 populations, 380 individuals) and the Carpathians (five populations, 22 individuals). A complex pattern of ploidy level variation (2x, 4x, 5x, 6x, and 7x cytotypes) was found in this sp...

As with many mountain belts globally, the Alps have seen a large increase in sediment yield in the late Neogene. The hypothesis that this increase results from climate-change impacts on erosion rate over the past ∼5 Ma is testable, given the extensive work completed in the Alps. Sediment budgets, thermochronology-based cooling rates, and estimates of modern rock uplift and erosion in the Wester...

Autoimmune manifestations are increasingly being recognized as a component of several forms of primary immunodeficiencies (PID). Defects in purging of self-reactive T and B cells, impaired Fas-mediated apoptosis, abnormalities in development and/or function of regulatory T cells, and persistence of immune activation as a result of inability to clear infections have been shown to account for thi...

Since the mid-1980s, glaciers in the European Alps have shown widespread and accelerating mass losses. This article presents glacier-specific changes in surface elevation, volume and mass balance for all glaciers in the Swiss Alps from 1980 to 2010. Together with glacier outlines from the 1973 inventory, the DHM25 Level 1 digital elevation models (DEMs) for which the source data over glacierize...

tion may represent a pathophysiologically important T-cell subpopulation involved in the characteristic progressive loss of hematopoietic stem cells from the bone marrow microenvironment in AA. Related, others have previously shown that T lymphocytes are a potent source of inflammatory and regulatory cytokines, including interleukin 10 (IL-10), reported to be elevated in a subgroup of patients ...

Vesicle-mediated protein transport between organelles of the secretory and endocytic pathways is strongly influenced by the composition and organization of membrane lipids. In budding yeast, protein transport between the trans-Golgi network (TGN) and early endosome (EE) requires Drs2, a phospholipid translocase in the type IV P-type ATPase family. However, downstream effectors of Drs2 and speci...

This study analyzes the impact of droughts, compared with average climatic conditions, on the supporting ecosystem service water provision in sub-watersheds in managed alpine grasslands in two climatically different regions of the Alps, Lautaret (French Alps) and Stubai (Austrian Alps). Soil moisture was modelled in the range of 0-0.3 m. At both sites, current patterns showed that the mean seas...