Cargando…

Changing alpine treeline : the example of Glacier National Park, MT, USA.

The alpine treeline ecotone (ATE) is an area of transition high on mountains where closed canopy forests from lower elevations give way to the open alpine tundra and rocky expanses above. Alpine tundra is an island biome and its ecotone with forest is subject to change, and like oceanic islands, alp...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Clasificación:Libro Electrónico
Formato: Electrónico eBook
Idioma:Inglés
Publicado: Amsterdam : Elsevier, 2009.
Colección:Developments in earth surface processes ; 12.
Temas:
Acceso en línea:Texto completo
Texto completo
Descripción
Sumario:The alpine treeline ecotone (ATE) is an area of transition high on mountains where closed canopy forests from lower elevations give way to the open alpine tundra and rocky expanses above. Alpine tundra is an island biome and its ecotone with forest is subject to change, and like oceanic islands, alpine tundra is subject to invasion or the upward advance of treeline. The invasion of tundra by trees will have consequences for the tundra biome as invasion does for other island flora and fauna. To examine the invasibility of tundra we take a plant's-eye-view, wherein the local conditions become extremely important. Among these local conditions, we find geomorphology to be exceptionally important. We concentrate on aspects of microtopography (and microgeomorphology) and microclimate because these are the factors that matter: from the plant's-eye-view, but we pay attention to multiple scales. The objective of this book is to examine the controls on change at alpine treeline. All the papers are focused on work done in Glacier National Park, Montana, USA. Although any one place is limiting, we are able to examine the alpine treeline here in some detail - and an advantage is that the treeline ecotone in Glacier National Park is quite variable in itself due to the underlying variability in geomorphology at multiple scales.
Descripción Física:1 online resource
Bibliografía:Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN:9780444533647
0444533648
9780080957098
0080957099
ISSN:0928-2025 ;