Over the past 10 years, the number of plant species on European mountain tops has increased by five-times more than during the period 1957-66. Data on 302 European peaks covering 145 years shows that the acceleration in the number of mountain-top species is unequivocally linked to global warming.
Over the past 10 years, the number of plant species on European mountain tops has increased by five-times more than during the period 1957-66. Data on 302 European peaks covering 145 years shows that the acceleration in the number of mountain-top species is unequivocally linked to global warming.
It is not as lonely at the top as it used to be.
At least not for plants which, due to global warming, are increasingly finding habitats on mountain tops that were formerly reserved for only the toughest and most hardy species.
A large international research team has not only ascertained a considerable increase in the number of plant species on 302 European mountain peaks over the past 150 years; they have also found that this increase is accelerating. Moreover, it is certain that this development is linked to rises in temperatures; changes in precipitation and nitrogen input could not explain the increase.
Read more at Aarhus University
Image: On the summit of Piz Linard in the Swiss Alps, 3410 meters above sea level, the botanists could identify 16 plant species, where in 1835 only one individual of one species had been found: The alpine rock-jasmine (Androsace alpina). Among the new species are several that a century earlier had never been found to grow at such altitudes. (Credit: Hansueli Rhyner, SLF, Switzerland)
