SEHAG

The joint project, funded by the Province of South Tyrol, the German Research Foundation (DFG), the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) and the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF), is investigating the effects and impacts of climate warming in high alpine areas. The study sites are the Martell Valley (South Tyrol), the Kaunertal Valley and the Horlachtal Valley (both in the province of Tyrol). In the 1st period of SEHAG, extensive investigations were carried out to show how the glaciers and permafrost influence colonisation in the glacier foreland, what interactions exist between vegetation, soil and geomorphological/hydrological disturbances and how climate change affects these processes. Based on these results, in phase 2 we will analyse the underlying processes in detail and forecast the developments into the future (time steps of 10 years starting with 2030 and ending with 2050). We will test a) whether a specific colonisation sequence and specific plant responses exist along temporal and spatial sequence of plant communities or whether they differ between different sites and if so, why; b) whether disturbances favour different vegetation types due to immigrating species from the surrounding area, especially low seed weight species; and c) whether climate change is the only driver of historical vegetation changes or whether land use also plays a role.