UPSHIFT

Effects of air pressure on upwards shifting alpine ecosystems

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  • Project duration: -
  • Project status: ongoing
  • Funding:
    Provincial Joint Programme – IT-FWF (Province BZ funding / Project)
  • Institute: Institute for Alpine Environment

Climate change is altering the elevation range limits of many organisms, often driving upward range shifts. In this context, reduced air pressure poses a potentially novel environmental problem for upwards migrating organisms to solve if they are to persist at high elevation as climate change continues. The goal of the project is threefold: 1) to understand how upwards migrating soil microorganisms and plant species react to lower air pressure; 2) to assess how upwards migrating soil microorganisms and plants perform with resident plants and soil microorganisms that have persisted in place under lower pressure; 3) to evaluate the effect of lower air pressure on the ecosystem water balance. The project integrates a unique extreme environment simulator (terraXcube) to simulate different alpine climate conditions, pot and mesocosm (lysimeter) experiments to disentangle the effects, and field observations from the LTSER site in Matsch/Mazia to validate the reliability of the obtained results.

Publications
Novel effects of reduced air pressure on alpine plants along climate change induced upwards migration
Lembo S, Niedrist G, Illmer P, Präg N, Meul A, Dainese M (2023)
Presentation/Speech

Conference: GfÖ Annual Meeting 2023 - 52nd Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of Germany, Austria and Switzerland | Leipzig | 11.9.2023 - 16.9.2023

Novel effects of air pressure conditions for alpine plants undergoing climate-induced range shifts
Lembo S (2022)
Presentation/Speech

Conference: International Mountain Conference IMC#22 | Innsbruck | 11.9.2022 - 15.9.2022

Project Partners