Objetivo Upper tree-line in the Ural mountains shifted upward by as much as 60-80 m of altitude during the past decades, as evidenced by old landscape photographs, geobotanical descriptions, and mapping efforts. The observed altitudinal rise may result from the well-documented warming of the earth's surface, which would provide evidence of the temperature semsitivity of tree-line ecosystems. An increase in forest cover alters the carbon stocks at the landscape scale, with implications for the role of terrestrial ecosystems as sinks for increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations.The main objective of this proposal is to study the spatio-temporal dynamics of the upper tree-line and carbon sequestration under the influence of regional and global climate changes during the 20th century in the Ural mountains. Results from the Urals will be compared with similar investigations in the eastern Putorana Plateau (northern central Siberia). The Urals and the Putorana Mountains are quite suitable for investigating climate induced processes because they have experienced little human influence. Most other mountain systems of temperate climatic zones like the European Alps are exposed to strong anthropogenic disturbances, such as forestry, settlements and grazing, which are superimposed upon climate-related processes.The proposed investigation combines vegetation sampling, soil ecological methods, historical reconstructions, and modelling. Tree-line dynamics and the resulting impacts on carbon pools will be studied in the South, North, and in Polar Urals, as well as in the Putorana Mountains. Old geobotanical descriptions, vegetation maps, repeat photography, and aerial photography will be used to quantify the past and present structure and location of the forest-tundra ecotone. At each site, transects will be established along altitudinal gradients within the tree-line ecotone, starting above the current species-line (alpine zone, tundra) and moving down across the species-line, the tree line, and into the subalpine forests. The combination of dendroecological methods with the mapping and measuring of individual trees will provide interannual, precisely dated records of tree-line positional shifts, changes in regeneration dynamics, and changes of tree growth within the tree-line ecotone. To estimate the effects of an attitudinally rising tree line on carbon storage, the C stocks in the above- and below-ground biomass, and in soil organic matter, will be quantified and characterised.Carbon turnover rates in the plant-soil system will be obtained by radiocarbon (14C) measurements, and by determining decomposition rates with litterbags. In addition to the ecological investigations, it is planned to reconstruct the history of human settlement and its potential influence on the tree-line ecotone during the last 200-400 years, based mainly on the published literature and historical archives in municipal records. Dynamic modelling tools and GIS techniques will be used to integrate and extrapolate from measured changes in vegetation and carbon pools. This should permit generalization from site-specific empirical relationships to landscape and regional scale patterns, and will allow us to derive scenarios of future dynamics under the impacts of anthropogenic climate change. Programa(s) IC-INTAS - International Association for the promotion of cooperation with scientists from the independent states of the former Soviet Union (INTAS), 1993- Tema(s) 5 - Earth Sciences, Environment, Energy OPEN - OPEN Call Convocatoria de propuestas Data not available Régimen de financiación Data not available Coordinador Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL Aportación de la UE Sin datos Dirección Zuercherstrasse 111 8903 Birmensdorf Suiza Ver en el mapa Coste total Sin datos Participantes (7) Ordenar alfabéticamente Ordenar por aportación de la UE Ampliar todo Contraer todo Russian Ministry of Agriculture Rusia Aportación de la UE Sin datos Dirección Furmanova, 109 620144 Ekaterinburg Ver en el mapa Coste total Sin datos Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences Rusia Aportación de la UE Sin datos Dirección Academgorodok 660036 Krasnoyarsk Ver en el mapa Coste total Sin datos Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich Suiza Aportación de la UE Sin datos Dirección Raemystrasse 101 8292 Zürich Ver en el mapa Coste total Sin datos Universität Bayreuth Alemania Aportación de la UE Sin datos Dirección 95440 Bayreuth Ver en el mapa Coste total Sin datos Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences Rusia Aportación de la UE Sin datos Dirección 8 Marta Street 202 620144 Ekaterinburg Ver en el mapa Coste total Sin datos Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences Rusia Aportación de la UE Sin datos Dirección 8 Marta Str. 202 620144 Ekaterinburg Ver en el mapa Coste total Sin datos Ural State Forest Engineering Academy Rusia Aportación de la UE Sin datos Dirección Sibirsky trakt, 37 620100 Ekaterinburg Ver en el mapa Coste total Sin datos
