Last-century forest dynamics in a highland Pyrenean National Park and implications for conservation
Rull, Valentí (Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont)
Blasco, Arnau (Universitat de Barcelona. Departament de Biologia Evolutiva, Ecologia i Ciències Ambientals)
Sigró, Javier (Universitat Rovira i Virgili. Centre en Canvi Climàtic)
Vegas-Vilarrúbia, Teresa (Universitat de Barcelona. Departament de Biologia Evolutiva, Ecologia i Ciències Ambientals)

Data:	2024
Resum:	Ecological records from before and after the creation of natural parks are valuable for informing conservation and management but are often unavailable. High-resolution paleoecological studies may bridge the gap and provide the required information. This paper presents a 20th-century subdecadal reconstruction of vegetation and landscape dynamics in a national park of the Pyrenean highlands. The park lands had traditionally been used for cultivation, extensive grazing, forest exploitation, and hydroelectricity generation following the damming of numerous glacial lakes. A significant finding is that forests have dominated the landscape, with negligible changes in composition, and only experienced fluctuations in forest cover, influenced by both climatic and anthropogenic factors. The creation of the park (1955) and the initial restrictions on forest exploitation did not significantly affect vegetation cover or composition. Major forest expansion did not occur until several decades later, 1980, when the park was enlarged and forest exploitation was further restricted. This expansion peaked in the 1990s, coinciding with a warming trend and a decrease in fire incidence, before declining due to warmer and drier climates. This decline was coeval with the ongoing global forest dieback and may be exacerbated by the predicted global warming in this century, which could also increase fire incidence due to dead-wood accumulation. Currently, the main threats are global warming/drying, fire, and tourism intensification. Similar high-resolution paleoecological records in protected areas are globally scarce and would be capable in providing the long-term ecological scope required to properly understand forest dynamics and optimize conservation measures.
Ajuts:	Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca 2021/SGR-00315
Drets:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Llengua:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Matèria:	National parks ; Paleoecology ; Forest dynamics ; Climate change ; Anthropogenic impact ; Conservation
Publicat a:	Plants, Vol. 13, issue 8 (2024) , art. 1144, ISSN 2223-7747

DOI: 10.3390/plants13081144
PMID: 38674553

17 p, 15.8 MB

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