Final Report Summary - PYRTREELINEMOD (A model for Pyrenean treeline: from individuals to landscapes under a changing climate)
Over the last years the interest in tree line ecology has increased considerably, given the high vulnerability of mountain ecosystems to global change. Tree line ecotones are one of the best indicators of climate change, providing a registry of recent Earth history. In the last decades, advancing tree lines have been observed worldwide, a response which has been attributed mainly to anthropogenic climate change. For example, a recent work by Harsch et al. (2009) showed that abrupt tree lines are less likely to advance in response to climate change than gradual tree lines. An upward shift of forests would have important implications by increasing the terrestrial carbon sink and by reducing the availability of habitat for endemic or endangered alpine plants. However, there is a controversy about the mechanisms underlying the formation of tree lines, and the emergence of different tree line physiognomies. This is a major limitation for predicting the future evolution of tree lines under projected climate scenarios for this century. In this context, the project PYRTREELINEMOD was proposed to improve the understanding of tree line dynamics and to apply this insight to predict its future evolution, with a main focus on the Pyrenean range.
