PARENT SESSION
Monday, August 7, 5:00-6:30 pm
Poster Session 7 - Climate and global change
Exhibit Hall, Ballroom Level, Cook Convention Center
GLORIA in North America, an alpine ecology monitoring network.
Holzer, Karen*,1, Fagre, Daniel1, Millar, Constance2, 1 USGS Biological Resources Division, West Glacier, MT2 USDA Forest Service Sierra Nevada Research Center, Albany, CA
ABSTRACT- The Global Observation Research Initiative in Alpine Environments (GLORIA) is an international research network whose purpose is to assess climate change impacts on vegetation in alpine environments worldwide. A standard protocol was developed by a network of international scientists based in Vienna, Austria, and has specific site requirements and techniques that allow sites to be compared worldwide. There are 38 active target regions, but only four in North America. These North American sites comprise the North American Chapter of GLORIA to date and are located in the Northern Rocky Mountains, Montana, and the eastern Sierra Nevada and White Mountains, California. The goal of the North American Chapter is to promote establishment of baseline GLORIA sites which are well-distributed throughout western North American mountain regions, and to encourage additional alpine plant monitoring through extended research projects related to the baseline GLORIA areas. The Glacier National Park target region, established in 2003 and completed in 2004 illustrates the GLORIA approach. The standard protocol required selection of four similar summits covering zonal differences of subalpine to nival that are likely to be sensitive to climatic change. Intensive vegetation plots were set up and will be monitored every five years. Species composition and percent cover were recorded, temperature loggers buried to assess long term change, and intense photo documentation procedures followed. Comparisons to other North American sites, and globally, will provide a unique inventory of mountain summit biodiversity. The first 5-year assessment is expected to show a coherent response to global climatic changes.
Key words: climate change, alpine vegetation, world wide network