Equilibrium of vegetation and climate at the European rear edge. A reference for climate change planning in mountainous Mediterranean regions

Research output: Journal contributionsJournal articlesResearchpeer-review

Authors

Mediterranean mountains harbour some of Europe's highest floristic richness. This is accounted for largely by the mesoclimatic variety in these areas, along with the co-occurrence of a small area of Eurosiberian, Boreal and Mediterranean species, and those of Tertiary Subtropical origin. Throughout the twenty-first century, we are likely to witness a climate change-related modification of the biogeographic scenario in these mountains, and there is therefore a need for accurate climate regionalisations to serve as a reference of the abundance and distribution of species and communities, particularly those of a relictic nature. This paper presents an objective mapping method focussing on climate regions in a mountain range. The procedure was tested in the Cordillera Central Mountains of the Iberian Peninsula, in the western Mediterranean, one of the ranges occupying the largest area of the Mediterranean Basin. This regionalisation is based upon multivariate analyses and upon detailed cartography employing 27 climatic variables. We used spatial interpolation of data based on geographic information. We detected high climatic diversity in the mountain range studied. We identified 13 climatic regions, all of which form a varying mosaic throughout the annual temperature and rainfall cycle. This heterogeneity results from two geographically opposed gradients. The first one is the Mediterranean-Euro-Siberian variation of the mountain range. The second gradient involves the degree of oceanicity, which is negatively related to distance from the Atlantic Ocean. The existing correlation between the climatic regions detected and the flora existing therein enables the results to be situated within the projected trends of global warming, and their biogeographic and ecological consequences to be analysed.

Original languageEnglish
JournalInternational Journal of Biometeorology
Volume55
Issue number3
Pages (from-to)285-301
Number of pages17
ISSN0020-7128
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 05.2011
Externally publishedYes

Recently viewed

Publications

  1. Attraktive Arbeitgeber in der Pflege
  2. Click Here to Shop Now!
  3. Buchbesprechungen
  4. Family firm identity and capital structure decisions
  5. Brexit's implications for EU-NATO cooperation
  6. Konstellation städtischer Gruppen
  7. Testmethoden zur Qualitätssicherung von Tabellenkalkulationsanwendungen
  8. Reduction of the Microbial Load of Digestate by the Cultivation of Galdieria sulphuraria Under Acidic Conditions
  9. Properties and processing of magnesium-tin-calcium alloys
  10. Krisenmanagement in Supply Chains
  11. Der "Anschein eines besonders günstigen Angebots" im Sinne des § 16 Abs.1 UWG
  12. Alisa Baremboym between the Corporeal and the Digital
  13. Social Conflicts on Agro-Biotechnology
  14. Das unechte Unterlassungsdelikt
  15. Who does all the research in conservation biology?
  16. Verdrängung und Profit
  17. Evaluating complex mental health care in outpatient care in rural Lower Saxony: an ecologic study
  18. Automotive applications of magnesium and its alloys
  19. Neue Formate transdisziplinärer Forschung
  20. Technology, Megatrends and Work
  21. Anlassbezogene Sekundärmarktpublizität und soziale Netzwerke in Deutschland und den USA
  22. Landscape heterogenity affects the functional diversity of grassland Lepidoptera
  23. The weighted Moran formula for the dimension of generic McMullen-Bedford carpets
  24. The Science and Practice of Landscape Stewardship, Claudia Bieling, Tobias Plieninger. Cambridge University Press (2017)
  25. Energiekonzept: Die Energierevolution
  26. An analysis of training and promotion of entrepreneurship in sustainability management
  27. Gender als didaktisches Prinzip
  28. Impact of monsoon-driven surface ocean processes on a coral off Port Blair on the Andaman Islands and their link to North Atlantic climate variations
  29. Daten gewinnen, darstellen, verarbeiten und interpretieren
  30. A simplified method for determination of pentachlorophenol and hexachlorobenzene in soil contaminated by industrial chemical residues
  31. Different responses of ant species to sugars and amino acids in a subtropical forest of China 
  32. Handball-Brennball
  33. Business Concentration Data for Germany
  34. Schöne Bescherung