2021
DOI: 10.1111/gcb.15510
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Rock glaciers and related cold rocky landforms: Overlooked climate refugia for mountain biodiversity

Abstract: Mountains are global biodiversity hotspots where cold environments and their associated ecological communities are threatened by climate warming. Considerable research attention has been devoted to understanding the ecological effects of alpine glacier and snowfield recession. However, much less attention has been given to identifying climate refugia in mountain ecosystems where present‐day environmental conditions will be maintained, at least in the near‐term, as other habitats change. Around the world, monta… Show more

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Cited by 70 publications
(46 citation statements)
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“…Similarly, in the Anthropocene, microclimatic changes will produce cold-air pooling and temperature inversions (Gentili et al, 2015) and possible colder microrefugia within the larger warming landscape. Therefore, some present-day environmental conditions might be maintained, at least in the near-term, as other habitats change (Brighenti et al, 2021), allowing for some cold adapted species threatened by summit traps ("nowhere to go" hypothesis; Loarie et al, 2009) to survive (Gobbi et al, 2021). The poor knowledge we have of this almost vanished cold habitat and climate dynamism, however, makes more research a necessity.…”
Section: Novel Alpine Geo-ecosystems and Adaptation Frameworkmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Similarly, in the Anthropocene, microclimatic changes will produce cold-air pooling and temperature inversions (Gentili et al, 2015) and possible colder microrefugia within the larger warming landscape. Therefore, some present-day environmental conditions might be maintained, at least in the near-term, as other habitats change (Brighenti et al, 2021), allowing for some cold adapted species threatened by summit traps ("nowhere to go" hypothesis; Loarie et al, 2009) to survive (Gobbi et al, 2021). The poor knowledge we have of this almost vanished cold habitat and climate dynamism, however, makes more research a necessity.…”
Section: Novel Alpine Geo-ecosystems and Adaptation Frameworkmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Increasing attention is also paid to DCGs from an ecological perspective, including a focus on flora [44][45][46][47][48][49][50], fauna [48,[51][52][53][54][55], microbes [56] and interactions between different organism groups [57] (Figure 2). The increasing ecological interest on DCGs is also related to the fact that these landforms were recognized as potential refugia for plants (and other organisms) during warm and cold stages in the past [44,45,47,53,54,58]. This has implications in space and time for post-glacial recolonization patterns [45], for primary succession in glacier forelands [59,60] and for the survival of cryophilous taxa under cur-rent climate warming due to the thermal inertia of DCGs [47,53,54].…”
Section: Introductionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Diversity 2022, 14, x FOR PEER REVIEW 4 of 26 organisms) during warm and cold stages in the past [44,45,47,53,54,58]. This has implications in space and time for post-glacial recolonization patterns [45], for primary succession in glacier forelands [59,60] and for the survival of cryophilous taxa under current climate warming due to the thermal inertia of DCGs [47,53,54].…”
Section: Introductionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Additionally, and especially when compared to glaciers, rock glacier meltwaters exhibit unique hydrographs (Bajewsky and Gardner, 1989;Jones et al, 2019b) and hydrochemistry signatures (Millar et al, 2013a;Fegel et al, 2016), as well as also volumetric discharge increases in late summer due to climate change (Caine, 2010). From an anthropogenic perspective, active rock glaciers represent unique engineering challenges, particularly with regard to the possibility of catastrophic collapse and debris flow generation (Iribarren and Bodin, 2010;Lugon and Stoffel, 2010;Bodin et al, 2017), but they also offer engineering opportunities as reservoirs of construction aggregate and water (Burger et al, 1999).…”
Section: Introductionmentioning
confidence: 99%