High Mountain Conservation in a Changing World

This book aims to provide case studies and a general view of the main processes involved in the ecosystem shifts occurring in the high mountains, and to analyse the implications for nature conservation. Although case studies from the Pyrenees are preponderant, conclusions are aimed at any mountain range surrounded by highly populated lowland areas. The chapters give emphasis to approaches from environmental geography, functional ecology, biogeography, and paleoenvironmental reconstructions. The introductory and closing chapters summarize the main challenges that nature conservation may face in mountain areas under the environmental shifting conditions. This interdisciplinary book will appeal to researchers in mountain ecosystems, students and nature professionals. This book is open access under a CC BY license.

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.