GLobal Observation Research Initiative in Alpine Environments
The purpose of GLORIA is to establish and maintain a world-wide long-term observation network in alpine environments. Vegetation and temperature data collected at the GLORIA sites will be used for discerning trends in species diversity and temperature. The data will be used to assess and predict losses in biodiversity and other threats to these fragile alpine ecosystems which are under accelerating climate change pressures.
Aims
A) The documentation of changes in biodiversity and vegetation patterns, caused by climate change in the world's high mountain ecosystems.
GLORIA aims to collect high-quality baseline and monitoring data by using:
a ground-based multi-site and long-term monitoring network, established at a world-wide level; and
a network of sophisticated long-term research sites, the GLORIA Master Sites
For (1), the method, the GLORIA Multi-Summit approach has been thoroughly tested and extensively applied across Europe.
For (2), the network will build up a few sites per continent which will provide detailed data on key climatic and biotic variables which are not recorded in the multi-site network.
At the Master Sites, the development of extensive monitoring methods and the use of experimental approaches is planned, using existing research infrastructures.
B) Assessments of the impacts of climate change-induced biodiversity and habitat losses and associated effects on ecosystem functioning. Reliable prognoses of temporal and spatial changes in biodiversity and habitat distribution require high quality field data.
The initial standardised regional data sets (such that of GLORIA-Europe) will be used as a basis for addressing large-scale comparisons and models of potential climate change effects on alpine biodiversity. Data from continued future observations will provide an improved baseline for model projections of biodiversity losses and critical impacts on ecosystem functioning.
C) The contribution of GLORIA to international efforts to mitigate biodiversity and habitat losses This involves the integration of GLORIA into the wider scope of international efforts on global change research, by collaboration with related programmes and initiatives, the promotion of the information flow to non-expert potential users and by the effective enhancement of public awareness.
Continent-wide response of mountain vegetation to climate change (PDF - 995Kb)- Continent-wide response of mountain vegetation to climate change - supplementary information (PDF - 715Kb)
- Recent Plant Diversity Changes on Europe's Mountain Summits (PDF - 358Kb)
- Recent Plant Diversity Changes on Europe's Mountain Summits - Supplementary Materials (PDF - 720Kb)
The article published in "Science" is based on the sampling of 66 summits all over the main European mountain systems, from Northern Europe to the Mediterranean. The research activity has been carried out by an international team of researchers coming from most of the European countries. The team also includes some Italian researches: among them, Prof. Marcello Tomaselli, current Director of the Department of Evolution and Functional Biology of the University of Parma, who collaborated with Dr. Alessandro Petraglia, working as a researcher for this University, and the D.Phil in Vegetable Biology Matteo Gualmini, Anna Antoniotti, and Michele Carbognani.
The research activity has confirmed that in all the European mountain systems the vegetable species are "migrating" towards higher altitudes. This migration has led to different results according to the geographical position and the mountain system involved. On the mountain summits of northern and central Europe (also including the Alps and the Apennines of Tuscany and Emilia), there is a general trend to increase the number of species and to preserve endemic species (that is, species with distribution limited to only one mountain system).
On the contrary, the mountain summits of the Mediterranean basin (including, among the others, the Central Apennines) are characterized by a constant or reduced number of species given to the arrival of new species from lower altitudes that have hardly compensated or have not been able to compensate the losses caused by the climate change. The loss of species has mainly interested the endemic species the Mediterranean mountains are particularly rich in, since they have been interested only marginally by the destruction effects of the Pleistocene glaciations. The Mediterranean mountain summits represent "cold islands" in a territorial context characterized by a definitely milder climate with a definitely dry summer. The increasing temperatures and the reduction of rainfall on the Mediterranean mountains has damaged above all the species of the cold islands of the summits, not able to survive at higher temperatures and at a greater summer dryness, unlike their major rivals, that is the species migrating from lower altitudes. Since the current prospecting for the Mediterranean basin talk about an increasing climate warming and drying, the extinction rate of the endemic species of the Mediterranean mountains is relentlessly bound to grow.
