To illuminate future uncertainties and inform strategic plans, this chapter presents three qualitative scenarios for the status of the HKH through 2080. The scenarios (Box 4.1) emerged from a participatory visioning exercise for scenario development (also see Sect. 4.1.2) conducted by the chapter team and HIMAP secretariat between January and September 2016. Over six successive workshops, decision makers and scientists representing HKH countries determined what would constitute a "prosperous" HKH scenario for 2080-along with its less desirable alternatives, business as usual and downhill (Fig. 4.1).

Dominant species may strongly influence biotic conditions and interact with other species, and thus are important drivers of community dynamics and ecosystem functioning, particularly in the stressed environment of alpine grasslands. However, the effects of dominant species on the community stability of different ecosystems remain poorly understood. We examined the temporal stability (2014-2020 year) of above-ground productivity and community stability mechanisms in the northern Tibetan four alpine grasslands (alpine meadow, alpine meadow steppe, alpine steppe, and alpine desert steppe) with changing species composition and dominance. Our results showed that community stability was significantly higher in the alpine meadow than in the other three types of grasslands. This difference was mainly attributed to the higher compensatory effect and selection effect in the alpine meadows. Furthermore, dominant species strongly affected community stability through increasing dominant species stability and species asynchrony. However, species richness had almost little effect. Our findings demonstrate that dominant species, as foundation species, may play leading roles in shaping community stability in the alpine grasslands, highlighting the importance of conserving dominant species for stable ecosystem functioning in these fragile ecosystems under increasing environmental fluctuations.