Impact of land use, natural disturbances and climate change on vascular plant diversity

目标项目被认为是结合和整合迄今为止自己的项目活动的合乎逻辑的结果，并最终形成与厄瓜多尔南部山地雨林生态系统有关的区域和主要问题。三个目标为计划的框架奠定基础：(i)继续进行气候测量（包括为其他工作小组提供服务），并通过“极端事件分析”找出导致植物多样性变化的重要气候变化诱因；（ii）透过侦测牧场、弃置地点及小径上现存维管陆生植物物种的海拔分布，弥补天然、近自然及人为植被之间缺失的联系；（iii）在首个申请人的工作小组首次进行同等程序后的十年，重新绘制滑坡地图，并重新审视2002年调查过的滑坡植被，以重新确定相关的演替特征。气候变化对生物多样性影响的研究大多考虑线性趋势，而非线性过程往往被忽视。因此，所要求的项目侧重于植物多样性对气候引起的干扰或压力（如干旱或滑动）以及人为环境的物种入侵所造成的附带事件的响应。

The aimed project is regarded as logical consequence to combine and integrate the hitherto own project activities and results in a final issue of regional as well as principal relevance for the mountain rainforest ecosystems in southern Ecuador. Three goals build up the framework of the intended project: (i) to continue the climate measurement (including service for other WGs) and to identify important climate change triggers for plant diversity changes by “extreme event analyses”; (ii) to close the missing link between natural, nature-near, and anthropogenic vegetation by detecting the elevational distribution of the occurring vascular terrestrial plant species on pastures, abandoned sites, and trails; (iii) to repeat the mapping of the landslides 10 years after a first equivalent procedure by the first applicant’s WG and to revisit the landslide vegetation investigated in 2002 to redetermine the related succession traits. While the majority of research on climate change impacts on biodiversity regards linear trends non-linear processes are mostly ignored. Hence, the requested project focuses on plant diversity responses on collateral events given by climate induced disturbances or stress such as droughts or sliding and by species invasions from man-made environs.