Summer rainfall variability in European Mediterranean mountains from the sixteenth to the twentieth century reconstructed from tree rings.

En este trabajo se utilizan dendrocronologías para reconstruir la precipitación estival

Environmental valuation by the local population and visitors for zoning a protected area

Protected natural areas have traditionally played an important role in tourist destinations. There are over one hundred thousand of these areas throughout the world and to date, their landscapes and biodiversity have constituted the main factor attracting visitors. Although these components have not lost their power to attract, many tourist destinations now highlight the relationship between nature and traditional culture. On one hand, the planning and management of natural areas have fundamentally been based on biophysical aspects; hence, their name. But, on the other, the socioeconomic perspective is of great importance and should be incorporated further into this management. The professional field of the sciences of ‘nature’, which so far has played a major role in these areas, along with the disciplines of social sciences and humanities, faces the challenge of integrating their analysis methods, which can be directly applied to an understanding of the dynamics of present-day tourism. This integration could consider protected areas and territories beyond their physical boundaries. Our team, with experience in the development of environmental analysis models applied to the zoning and subsequent declaration of these areas, has proposed a new procedure for evaluating carrying capacities and tourism potentialities, integrating environmental (landscape), anthropological (local society and visitors) and socioeconomic (living standard and quality of life of local population) perspectives. The research relates this kind of components through multivariate analyses, geo-referenced databases and questionnaires. The pathway of the model is landscape functioning (ecosystem) and its function for society (ecosystem services)

Efectos del cambio climático en la vegetación de las cordilleras españolas Central e Ibérica: implicaciones para la ordenación del territorio = Effects of climate change on vegetation of the Spanish Central and Iberian Ranges : implications for ecological planning

Tesis doctoral inédita. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Facultad de Ciencias, Departamento de Ecología. Fecha de lectura: 15-07-201

Changes in tree species composition in Mediterranean mountains under climate change: Indicators for conservation planning

Since the last glacial–interglacial cycles, Mediterranean mountains in Southern Europe have constituted the southern refuge of numerous species of Eurosiberian and Boreal origin. Some vestiges of European Tertiary flora have also remained in this area. These mountains present one of the continent’s highest plant diversity indices deriving from their geographic and historical circumstances throughout the Quaternary. Throughout this century, a change in the biogeographic characteristics of these mountains is to be expected as a result of climate change. Based on four Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scenarios, we developed a multivariate analysis model for mountain ranges in Central Spain (Southern Europe), enabling us to adjust data on vegetation, climate, lithology and availability of soil water. With high-resolution data on species occurrences and abiotic characteristics for better accounting of micro-refugia and topographic complexity in mountain regions, we assess the future potential distribution of tree species and changes in plant communities under climate change. Our model provides the climate descriptors that most influence changes in species distribution and which lead us to consider the parameters of these changes as indicators for management. We project for this century a significant spread of Mediterranean tree communities in detriment to temperate or cold-adapted tree communities. In mountain forests in northern Europe, limitations on plant growth are mainly thermic, and the boreal and subalpine species in high- and mid-mountain regions are therefore the ones most threatened by the predicted global warming. To the contrary, our results show that in mountains in southern Europe, the formations that will undergo the greatest changes will be at piedmonts and low-mountain levels, due to increased hydric deficit. These results suggest that nature conservation strategies currently call for new approaches that take into account the fact that climate change is a driving force of species distribution. The results can be used at the landscape scale for management of forest species and for the design of protected areas

Marco de relaciones y retos de gestión en el Parque Nacional de la Sierra de Guadarrama

Depto. de Biodiversidad, Ecología y EvoluciónFac. de Ciencias BiológicasTRUEpu

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

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