Monitoring and analysis of the impacts of climate change on plant biodiversity and terrestrial ecosystems in alpine and polar environment.

• Main Author: Dalle Fratte, Michele
• Other Authors: GUGLIELMIN, MAURO, CANNONE, NICOLETTA
• Format: Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Università degli Studi dell'Insubria 2017
• Subjects: Climate change; Alps; Antarctica; snow melt; phenology; growing season lenghts; plasticity; adaptation; climate variability; extreme events; carry over effects; ground surface temperature; permafrost; active layer; nutrients; manipulation experiments; alpine plants; polar mosses and lichens; BIO/03 BOTANICA AMBIENTALE E APPLICATA; Antarctic; The Antarctic; Antarc*; Tundra
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/11383/2090906; http://hdl.handle.net/10277/733

High altitude and latitude environments are among those areas of the Planet that are experiencing the most significant changes of the climatic conditions due to the recent global change. Terrestrial ecosystems in these regions are extremely sensitive to climate, and for this reason, well suited for the comprehension, evaluation and monitoring of their responses, and their modelling under different climate change scenarios. This thesis focuses on the impacts of climate change on terrestrial ecosystems of alpine (Foscagno valley, central Italian Alps) and Polar (both Continental Antarctica and Maritime Antarctica) tundra habitats. European Alps and Maritime Antarctica are two of the three areas of the world where have been recorded the greatest air temperature warming in the last 50 years, whereas simultaneously in Continental Antarctica, air temperature was almost stable. Due to different trends of climate and anthropogenic pressures around the world, contemporary global change is characterized by a large spatial variability that makes the planning of adaptation and mitigation strategies particularly complicate. Peculiar habitats have been protected by international, European and national programs (the Foscagno valley belongs to the Nature 2000 network, while the Antarctica ecosystems are protected under the Antarctic treaty and specially protected areas). However, analyzing the dynamics of terrestrial ecosystems in regions that are facing different climate change scenarios, as well as biological and anthropogenic constrains, could improve the knowledge of the dynamics of terrestrial ecosystems, that could be used for modelling future scenarios and to implement the adaptation plans for such protected areas. The identification of conservation actions and monitoring plans is thus the priority for such threatened environments, to ensure a correct management of the biodiversity and of the ecosystem services that they can provide. The alpine site is the Foscagno Valley, a high altitude site (>2500 m a.s.l.) located ...