About the cover

Figure 1. Looking north to the upper part of the Griess Glacier foreland and the north face of the Gross Schärhorn, Canton Uri, Switzerland. Photo credit: Konrad Greinwald, Albert-Ludwigs-University of Freiburg.

The Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Research, Volume 53, cover photograph of Griess Glacier foreland, Switzerland, was taken during fieldwork by Konrad Greinwald of the University of Freiburg (Figure 1). The scenery shows the upper part of the glacier foreland with snowbed plant communities in the foreground, and moraine hillslopes behind, which have been deposited there approximately 100 years ago. The steep hillslopes are crossed by channels caused by gully erosion. In the background, the north faces of Chammliberg (3215 m.a.s.l., left) and of Gross Schärhorn (3294 m.a.s.l., right), and in between the glacial transfluence saddle of Hüfi Glacier are visible.

The image captures many attributes that are subject to the current research project HILLSCAPE (see http://www.hillscape.ch), which focuses on investigating the evolution of hillslope structures and functioning in alpine glacier forelands. As part of this project, recent research includes an article in the current Volume 53 on root distributions and biomass allocation patterns of moraines with different ages of substrate exposure (Greinwald et al. 2021). Further related articles deal with erosion rates (Musso et al. 2020), the evolution of soil pores (Musso et al. 2019), surface hydrological properties (Maier et al. 2020), and the hydrological flow path evolution (Hartmann et al. 2020).