Plant Life In High Mountains

This book is a completely revised, substantially extended treatment of the physical and biological factors that drive life in high mountains. The book covers the characteristics of alpine plant life, alpine climate and soils, life under snow, stress tolerance, treeline ecology, plant water, carbon, and nutrient relations, plant growth and productivity, developmental processes, and two largely novel chapters on alpine plant reproduction and global change biology. The book explains why the topography driven exposure of plants to dramatic micro-climatic gradients over very short distances causes alpine biodiversity to be particularly robust against climatic change. Geographically, this book draws on examples from all parts of the world, including the tropics. This book is complemented with novel evidence and insight that emerged over the last 17 years of alpine plant research. The number of figures – mostly in color – nearly doubled, with many photographs providing a vivid impression of alpine plant life worldwide. Christian Körner was born in 1949 in Austria, received his academic education at the University of Innsbruck, and was full professor of Botany at the University of Basel from 1989 to 2014. As emeritus Professor he is continuing alpine plant research in the Swiss Alps.

This book presents an overview study about plant biogeography and vegetation of the high mountains of Central and South-West Asia, by a group of specialists familiar with its area and plant growth and ecology. This book discusses its ecological and evolutionary drivers and also its conservation priorities. Central and South-West Asia is one of the most diverse areas in the northern hemisphere and several biodiversity hotspots are concentrated in this region. Most of the biodiversity hotspots are associated with high mountain ranges of the region. Moreover, these mountains have been immigration corridors for the Central Asian flora to reach Euro-Siberian and Mediterranean regions. Despite its importance, there is no overview publication to present the plant biogeography and vegetation of these mountains and most of the publications are local or rather imprecise

This aesthetically unique book combines ecological, morphological and anatomical, as well as phylogenetic studies on plant material in a largely unexplored dry mountain region above the timberline. It offers the first comparative analysis of hundreds of plants - annuals, perennial herbs and dwarf shrubs - in an area of 87,000 km2 at altitudes from 2600 to 6150 m above sea level in the Western Himalaya. Characteristic landscape pictures of all major vegetation types and maps show at which locations and altitudes the individual species of vascular plants are distributed, while macroscopic plant pictures and plant age are related to high-quality micro-sections and micro-photographs. The anatomical features of 345 dicotyledons were characterized using the published coding systems and those of 155 monocotyledones were characterized on the basis of a newly developed key. The number of annual rings and anatomical features of the xylem and phloem of dicots are compared and related to different ecological conditions within this extremely dry and cold environment. The ecological and anatomical characterization is used to create a phylogenetic tree based on nucleotide sequences, and indicates which features are genetically stable and which ones are modified by environmental factors. The book appeals to scientists in the fields of plant taxonomy, morphology, anatomy and ecology.

The book describes richness and diversity of Georgia’s vegetation. Contrasting ecosystems coexist on the relatively small territory of the country and include semi-deserts in East Georgia, Colchic forests with almost sub-tropical climate in West Georgia and subnival plant communities in high mountains. West Georgia lacks xerophilous vegetation zone and mesophilous forest vegetation spreads from the sea level to subalpine zone. The Colchic refugium (West Georgia) ensured survival of the Tertiary’s mesophilous forest flora. Vertical profile of the vegetation is more complex in East Georgia with semi-desert, steppe and arid open forest zone. In South Georgia the montane zone represented by montane steppe is devoid of forests

This book provides a compact, up-to-date and detailed overview of the vegetation of the Iberian Peninsula, a highly diverse part of Europe in the Mediterranean area. Written by a group of experienced researchers, the volume includes a first section with general chapters discussing the climate, the biogeography and the flora, and a second section with detailed descriptions of the 14 regional sectors into which the peninsula and Balearic Islands have been divided. A third section explores special features, such as aquatic vegetation, gypsum and dolomite vegetation, coastal vegetation, mountain flora and vegetation, conservation issues and alien flora.

This book presents an overview study about plant biogeography and vegetation of the high mountains of Central and South-West Asia, by a group of specialists familiar with its area and plant growth and ecology. This book discusses its ecological and evolutionary drivers and also its conservation priorities. Central and South-West Asia is one of the most diverse areas in the northern hemisphere and several biodiversity hotspots are concentrated in this region. Most of the biodiversity hotspots are associated with high mountain ranges of the region. Moreover, these mountains have been immigration corridors for the Central Asian flora to reach Euro-Siberian and Mediterranean regions. Despite its importance, there is no overview publication to present the plant biogeography and vegetation of these mountains and most of the publications are local or rather imprecise.

This book provides case studies and general views of the main processes involved in the ecosystem shifts occurring in the high mountains and analyses the implications for nature conservation. Case studies from the Pyrenees are preponderant, with a comprehensive set of mountain ranges surrounded by highly populated lowland areas also being considered. The introductory and closing chapters will summarise the main challenges that nature conservation may face in mountain areas under the environmental shifting conditions. Further chapters put forward approaches from environmental geography, functional ecology, biogeography, and paleoenvironmental reconstructions. Organisms from microbes to large carnivores, and ecosystems from lakes to forest will be considered. This interdisciplinary book will appeal to researchers in mountain ecosystems, students and nature professionals. This book is open access under a CC BY license.

This up-to-date textbook of global vegetation ecology, which comprises the current state of knowledge, is long overdue and much-needed. It is a translation of the textbook “Vegetation der Erde” (Springer-Spektrum, Heidelberg). A short introductory chapter deals with the fundamentals of vegetation ecology that are of importance for the delimitation and characterization of the global vegetation presented in this book (chorology, evolution of plants, physiognomic and structural characteristics, phytodiversity and the human impact on it as well as general terminology concerning both plant growth forms and on vegetation structure types). In the following chapters the zonal and azonal vegetation from the tropics to the polar regions including high mountains is described and discussed. The main focus is on the characterization of interactions between the spatial location of plants and plant communities on the one hand and site conditions, historic and genetic processes, spatial and temporal patterns, ecophysiology and anthropogenic influences on the other hand. Additional information on specific topics is provided in 51 boxes.

Alpine treelines mark the low-temperature limit of tree growth and occur in mountains world-wide. Presenting a companion to his book Alpine Plant Life, Christian Körner provides a global synthesis of the treeline phenomenon from sub-arctic to equatorial latitudes and a functional explanation based on the biology of trees. The comprehensive text approaches the subject in a multi-disciplinary way by exploring forest patterns at the edge of tree life, tree morphology, anatomy, climatology and, based on this, modelling treeline position, describing reproduction and population processes, development, phenology, evolutionary aspects, as well as summarizing evidence on the physiology of carbon, water and nutrient relations, and stress physiology. It closes with an account on treelines in the past (palaeo-ecology) and a section on global change effects on treelines, now and in the future. With more than 100 illustrations, many of them in colour, the book shows alpine treelines from around the globe and offers a wealth of scientific information in the form of diagrams and tables.