Effects of a Short-Term Trampling Experiment on Alpine Vegetation in the Tatras, Slovakia

Abstract

Over the past decades, outdoor recreation in mountains has become progressively more important and as a result human induced potential damage has increased. Alpine communities are particularly susceptible to human recreational activities, such as tourist trampling. Although there are a number of studies that explicitly assess the effects of trampling on alpine communities, they do not reflect on terrains with a rich topography and the presence of more communities in very small areas. In this study, effects of short-term trampling on some alpine communities in the Tatras, the highest mountains of the Carpathians, were studied experimentally. Vulnerability to disturbance was compared among plant communities in terms of resistance and resilience, which are based on cover measurements. With proximity to trampling intensity, we found a significant decrease in plant cover and abundance of deciduous shrubs, lichens, and mosses. These results demonstrate that human trampling in alpine communities has major negative impacts on lichen and moss abundance and species richness. A short-term trampling experiment required several years of community regeneration. Therefore, management plans should discourage hiking activity off paths and restrict recreational activities.

Resistance of plant life forms of native and regenerated alpine plant communities to experimental trampling

“…Experimental design. In each plant community (native and regenerated), one experimental block was established in the uniform vegetation (Piscová et al, 2021). This experimental block consists of one control and two trampled plots.…”

“…One trampling procedure occured on the same day for all treatments, 4 times during the vegetation season, in June, July, August and September (Piscová et al, 2021). Each experimental plot is assigned one of the three trampling treatments: control (no trampling), 150 passes and 450 passes on the same day (Piscová et al, 2021). Following the Cole & Bayfield (1993) study, measured parameters were:…”

An annotated nomenclatural checklist of endemic vascular plants distributed in the Ukrainian Carpathians

“…However, Kliment et al (2016) , like some other authors (e.g. Piscová et al (2021) ), consider S. kitaibeliana as an independent species. Chopyk and Fedoronchuk (2015) noted that these two species are very close, but also still delimited them, based on the differences in the leaf morphology (leaves are up to 2 cm long obovate, with a retuse tip in S. retusa and up to 4 cm long, oblong-obovate, with a pointed tip in S. kitaibeliana ).…”