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At the European level, the Natura 2000 habitat network is the main instrument for preserving and protecting species and habitats. However, protected areas are fixed in location, and environmental conditions continually subject to change. Changing conditions force species to shift their geographic distribution or to adapt to new conditions, ultimately causing a change in the composition of the habitats' species. We modelled the response of two important alpine EU habitat types (6150, 6170) in the Styrian Eastern Alps to increasing temperatures using two representative concentration pathways (rcp 4.5 and rcp 8.5) of the regional climate model CCLM4-8-17 CLMcom. Our results confirmed that climate change within the next several decades will have an immediate and profound impact on the Alpine flora and their habitats. The niche models indicate a dramatic reduction in the habitat suitability of 15 habitat diagnostic species before the end of the twenty-first century. Habitat change was found to be slower inside protected areas in the first half of the twenty-first century, while in the second half of the twenty-first century, suitable habitat conditions either remained constant for the lower temperature scenario (rcp 4.5) or shifted to "outside" current protected areas in the severe scenario (rcp 8.5). Regions of rapidly changing habitat suitability and subsequently shifting species composition can be found both inside and outside of the protected area network. These developments may lead to the deterioration of the conservation status of habitat types and challenge the aims of the EU habitat directive.

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Storing seeds in seed banks is an effective way to preserve plant diversity and conserve species. An essential step towards a valuable conservation is the validation of germination. This study presents a germination screening of seeds from 255 species of the European Eastern Alps, which were to be stored at the Millennium Seed Bank (Kew, UK). The final germination percentage (FGP) was determined using a standard protocol in the laboratory. Species were classified according to species rarity, plant community, occurrence at elevation belts, bedrock types, as well as CSR strategies, and further, seed mass was examined. We could not find statistically significant differences of FGP within these classes, but 74.9% of all tested species germinated using the standard protocol, and half of them had FGP ≥ 20.1–100%. A treatment with gibberellic acid enhanced the germination in half of the species to which this treatment was applied. Common families in alpine regions, i.e. Asteraceae, Poaceae and Saxifragaceae were highlighted in terms of their germination behaviour. The results provide an evaluation of the application of standard protocols to a broad Alpine species pool on the one hand, and on the other hand, provide ecological insights of the species tested. Germination is not only one of the most important events of the reproductive cycle of plants but could also be a key feature in species' responses to changing environmental conditions.