MOUNTLAND ‒ ECOS ‐ EPFL

Impact of Land-Use Change and Climate Change on High Elevation Pasture-Woodland Ecosystems

Project

Type : interdisciplinary project (2009-2012)

Fund : Competence Center Environment and Sustainability (CCES) , European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST)

Description :

Silvopastoral systems are highly productive and combine long-term wood production with annual provision of forage for livestock. In the Swiss Jura Mountains these systems are a key component of the landscape. As in other cold biomes, climate change can potentially accelerate landscape change within these historically sustainable systems.

Experimental transplantation of monolith soil turfs to lower altitudes will simulate soil warming and reduced annual precipitation.
A list of above- and belowground variables will be measured to assess the resilience of biogeochemical processes, plant productivity, tree regeneration, and carbon sequestration for each respective land-use practice: pastures, wooded pastures, and
forests.

Furthermore the project will improve on the existing spatially explicit, dynamic model WoodPaM and refine the modelʼs climatic and land-use variables so that different scenarios of climate change and land use change can be simulated. Natural and
management induced disturbance patterns will be incorporated into the model. Essentially, it will be parameterized with the field-collected data.

Keywords :
silvopastoral systems, vegetation dynamics, spatially explicit modeling, biogeochemistry, aboveground-belowground interactions, soil transplantation, mesocosms

Collaborations :

PhD students:
Konstantin Gavazov

Post-Doc:
Dr. Alexander Peringer

Researchers:
Prof. Dr. Alexandre Buttler
Prof. Dr. François Gillet
Dr. Thomas Spiegelberger
Dr. Claire Guenat

Partnership :
CCES Mountland project
ETHZ
WSL
SLF