Once upon a time biomass burning in the western Alps: Nesting effects of climate and local drivers on long-term subalpine fires

Unsuspected prevalence of Pinus cembra in the high-elevation sky islands of the western Alps

“…Indeed, tree height and shape are largely independent of age and result from mechanisms that have affected plants during their lifetime; thus, small individuals are not necessarily "seedlings". Further, scattered trees can inherit features from non-climatic historical factors, eg, domestic grazing (Carrer 2015) and anthropogenic burning (Carcaillet et al 2022), that may have excluded or hindered tree recruitment for centuries and, therefore lowered the treeline. If individual physiognomy is, for a time, shaped by these historical factors, then the mere presence of tree species -largely overlooked and underestimated (Oberg and Kullman 2011) -could be considered part of the treeline, especially if the individuals are not growing in their best nutritional habitat (gentler slopes, deeper soils) but in places that exclude domestic grazers (eg, rocky outcrops, cliffs).…”

Tree dieback, woody plant diversity, and ecosystem driven by topography in semi-arid mountain forests: Implication for ecosystem management

“…In mountains, forest structure and diversity are driven by micro-scale drivers, e.g., slope, aspect, altitude, bedrock, or moisture (Kovács et al 2017, Luo et al, 2019Michalet et al, 2020;Woldu et al, 2020;Deák et al, 2021;Carcaillet et al, 2022). Understanding these natural patterns and associated mechanisms provide valuable benchmarks for the ecosystem management, which aims to reduce the differences between natural and managed landscapes to ensure long-term conservation of ecosystem functions and, thereby, retain the socioeconomic benefits (Führer, 2000;Gauthier et al, 2009;Heckwolf et al, 2021).…”