Unique case studies from the Pyrenees providing a view of the main processes involved in the ecosystem shifts in the high mountains

In-depth research into the high mountain experiencing increasing temperatures causing shifts related to atmospheric chemical deposition, land use, and species invasion

A study of how high mountains hold the largest areas for nature conservation, and in many countries are still considered a wilderness

Inhalt

Introduction.- 1. Trade-offs in the high-mountain conservation.- 2. Present phylogeorgraphic patterns in European mountains resulting from past large climatic oscillations.- 3. The early human occupation of the high mountain.- 4. Millenial socio-ecological trajectories in high mountain and land use.- 5. Non-equilibrium in alpine plan assemblages, current shifts in summit floras.- 6. Diversity assembly in alpine plant communities.- 7. Regional forest idiosyncrasy and the response to global change.- 8. Life-history responses to the altitudinal gradient in mountain fauna.- 9. Towards a microbial conservation perspective in high-mountain lakes.- 10. On defence of fishless high mountain lakes.- 11. Atmospheric chemical loadings in the high mountain: current forcing and legacy pollution.- 12. High soil carbon stocks in mountain grasslands may be compromised by land use changes.- 13. Why recovering large carnivore populations in high mountains?.- 14. The role of environmental history in high mountain landscape conservation.- 15. Conservation lessons from long-term studies of the bearded vulture.- 16. Monitoring global change in the high mountain.- 17. Evaluating global change effects on high mountain snow and the impact on water resources.- 18. A modelling approach to the understanding of past, present and future shifts in vegetation.- 19. Challenges for conservation in a changing world, perspective from the high mountains.