Climate and land use change impacts on Mediterranean high-mountain vegetation in the Apennines since the 1950s

Abstract

Background: High-mountain ecosystems are centres of plant diversity that are particularly sensitive to land-use and climate change.

Aims: We investigated the ecological trends associated with land use and climate change since the 1950s in different vegetation types in high-mountain habitats in the central Apennines.

Methods: We analysed temporal changes in: Pinus mugo scrub, calcareous subalpine grasslands and alpine scree vegetation, comparing historical and recent vegetation records from vegetation plots from two periods (1955–1980 and 1990–2014) for their ecological indicator values (Landolt temperature and nutrient indicators) and structural traits (growth forms) over time using generalised linear models (GLMs).

Results: We observed significant temporal differences in the ecology and structure of the analysed habitats. In the Pinus mugo scrub we detected a reduction of subalpine and herbaceous species and in calcareous alpine screes we observed an increment of the lower montane, montane and subalpine species and of dwarf shrubs. Conversely, subalpine grasslands were stable over time.

Conclusions: Ecological changes that have occurred in the Central Apennines, following changes in type and intensity of land use and recent warming are consistent with those observed in other European mountains, for which climate and land-use changes are claimed as the main driving forces.

Keywords:

• Calcareous alpine scree
• calcareous subalpine grassland
• diagnostic and common species
• growth forms
• Landolt indicators
• Mediterranean mountains
• Pinus mugo scrub
• vegetation change

Acknowledgements

This study was partially supported by the Italian project of strategic interest, NEXTDATA, in the context of ‘Data-LTER-Mountain’ action and by the project MEDIALPS – Disentangling anthropogenic drivers of climate change impacts on alpine plant species: Alps vs. Mediterranean mountains, funded by the Austrian Academy of Sciences. We thank S.M. Hennekens for the support in building up the VIOLA database and M. Di Febbraro for helping us with data analysis. We also thank the editor and the anonymous reviewers for their comments that helped us to improve the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary

The supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ludovico Frate

Ludovico Frate has a Ph.D. in landscape ecology and climate change effects on mountain plant communities.

Maria L. Carranza

Alberto Evangelista has a Ph.D. in high-mountain vegetation and climate warming.

Alberto Evangelista

Adriano Stinca is a researcher in mountain plant taxonomy.

Adriano Stinca

Joop H.J. Schaminée is a plant ecologist and an expert for the European Topic Centre on Nature Protection and Biodiversity.

Joop H. J. Schaminée

Maria L. Carranza is a plant ecologist and university professor with an interest in landscape ecology.

Angela Stanisci

Angela Stanisci is a plant ecologist and university professor with an interest in conservation biology of high-mountain ecosystems.