An overview of research from a high elevation landscape: the Niwot Ridge, Colorado Long Term Ecological Research programme
2015
Williams, Mark W. | Seastedt, Timothy R. | Bowman, William D. | McKnight, Diane M. | Suding, Katharine N.
Background: There is a paucity of information for mountain catchments, and in particular a lack of long-term data collection in alpine areas. Aims: The focus of this special issue is to synthesize alpine research undertaken in the last 20 years at high altitude research sites that comprise the Niwot Ridge Long Term Ecological Research (NWT LTER) programme. It is a timely update of the benchmark volume on alpine ecology by Bowman and Seastedt (2001) that presented a summary of work carried out over 40 years on the structure and functioning of the NWT LTER alpine terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Methods: We introduce and synthesize both the individual manuscripts in this monograph, along with insights from non-LTER investigators. Results and conclusions: Mountain areas are sentinels of climate change. We are seeing those effects today. Furthermore, these ecosystem changes we report are occurring in mountain areas before they occur in downstream ecosystems. Thus, the sensitivity of mountain ecosystems to changes in climate begs for enhanced and worldwide protection. Our results suggest that investing in observational and integrated social-ecological system research in mountains is key for underpinning scientifically the development and implementation of efficient mitigation and adaptation measures and sustainable development strategies.
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