Title
Assessing climate change effect on mountain ecosystems using integrated models: A case study
Document Type
Book Chapter
Publication Title
Global Change and Mountain Regions: An Overview of Current Knowledge
Publisher
Springer
Publication Date
2005
Volume
Part IV
First Page
489
Last Page
500
Abstract
Mountain systems are characterized by strong environmental gradients, rugged topography and extreme spatial heterogeneity in ecosystem structure and composition. Consequently, most mountainous areas have relatively high rates of endemism and biodiversity, and function as species refugia in many areas of the world. Mountains have long been recognized as critical entities in regional climatic and hydrological dynamics but their importance as terrestrial carbon stores has only been recently underscored (Schimel et al. 2002; this volume). Mountain ecosystems, therefore, are globally important as well as unusually complex. These ecosystems challenge our ability to understand their dynamics and predict their response to climatic variability and global-scale environmental change.
DOI
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-3508-X_49
Rights
© 2005 Springer
Recommended Citation
Fagre, D. B., Running S. W., Keane R. E., and Peterson D. L. Assessing climate change effect on mountain ecosystems using integrated models: A case study in Global Change and Mountain Regions: An Overview of Current Knowledge edited by Uli M. Huber, Harald K. M. Bugmann, and Mel A. Reasoner. Springer Netherlands, p. 489-500.
Comments
Volume 23 of the series Advances in Global Change Research