Background: Damage to alpine plant communities is likely to occur when hikers and pack animals trample vegetation. Currently, there is limited research that quantifies and compares impacts from these activities. Aims: A manipulative experimental protocol was used to assess damage to alpine meadows by pack animals and hikers in the Aconcagua Provincial Park, Andes, Argentina. Methods: Vegetation height, overall cover, cover of dominant species and species richness were measured immediately after, and 2 weeks after different numbers of passes (0, 25, 100 and 300) by hikers or pack animals in an experiment, using a randomised block design. Results: Pack animals had two to three times the impact of hiking on the meadows, with greater reductions in plant height, the cover of one of the dominant sedges and declines in overall vegetation cover after 300 passes. Impacts of pack animals were also apparent at lower levels of use than for hikers. These differences occurred despite the meadow community having relatively high resistance to trampling due to the traits of one of the dominant sedges (Carex gayana). Conclusions: Pack animals caused more damage than hikers to the alpine meadow, but the scale of the difference in shortterm impacts depends on the characteristics of the plant community, the amount of use and the vegetation parameters measured. Use of the meadows by hikers and pack animals should be minimised as these meadows are scarce, and have high conservation values.

Aim: Climate change is expected to impact mountain biodiversity by shifting species ranges and the biomes they shape. The extent and regional variation in these impacts are still poorly understood, particularly in the highly biodiverse Andes. Regional syntheses of climate change impacts on vegetation are pivotal to identify and guide research priorities. Here we review current data, knowledge and uncertainties in past, present and future climate change impacts on vegetation in the Andes.

Climate change and other global change drivers threaten plant diversity in mountains worldwide. A widely documented response to such environmental modifications is for plant species to change their elevational ranges. Range shifts are often idiosyncratic and difficult to generalize, partly due to variation in sampling methods. There is thus a need for a standardized monitoring strategy that can be applied across mountain regions to assess distribution changes and community turnover of native and non‐native plant species over space and time. Here, we present a conceptually intuitive and standardized protocol developed by the Mountain Invasion Research Network (MIREN) to systematically quantify global patterns of native and non‐native species distributions along elevation gradients and shifts arising from interactive effects of climate change and human disturbance. Usually repeated every five years, surveys consist of 20 sample sites located at equal elevation increments along three replicate roads per sampling region. At each site, three plots extend from the side of a mountain road into surrounding natural vegetation. The protocol has been successfully used in 18 regions worldwide from 2007 to present. Analyses of one point in time already generated some salient results, and revealed region‐specific elevational patterns of native plant species richness, but a globally consistent elevational decline in non‐native species richness. Non‐native plants were also more abundant directly adjacent to road edges, suggesting that disturbed roadsides serve as a vector for invasions into mountains. From the upcoming analyses of time series, even more exciting results can be expected, especially about range shifts. Implementing the protocol in more mountain regions globally would help to generate a more complete picture of how global change alters species distributions. This would inform conservation policy in mountain ecosystems, where some conservation policies remain poorly implemented.

Hikers and livestock using mountain trails damage native vegetation and act as seed vectors, thus favouring the spread of non-native plants. We evaluated the effect of trails and livestock abundance on the success of non-native plants in the arid central Andes of Argentina. We surveyed six trails, covering elevations between 2400 m and 3570 m a.s.l. and recorded non-native and native vegetation using transects distributed along the elevational gradient and spanning distances up to 22 m from the trail. We assessed how non-native occurrence, richness and cover varied with distance from the trail, intensity of use by livestock, native plant community composition and elevation. We found that trails favoured nonnative occurrence, but did not in uence richness and cover, while livestock favoured non-native occurrence, richness and cover. Non-native richness and cover decreased with elevation and varied with native community composition. In addition, non-native richness was positively correlated with native shrub cover suggesting possible facilitative interactions. Our results show that despite strong environmental ltering that decreases non-native abundance with elevation, non-natives occur up to the upper limits of vegetation, and that trails and livestock favour their spread in the mountains.Aconcagua, where over 120 vascular plant species have been recorded (Méndez 2004(Méndez , 2007Méndez et al. 2006). SamplingWe carried out the eld surveys in the summer season (January-March) of 2018 and 2019. Selected sites were intensively used for mountaineering activities and had a broad elevational range, with an average difference in elevation of 650 m a.s.l. between the start and the end of the trail. The sampling followed the T-trail survey protocol developed by the Mountain Invasion Research Network (MIREN) (Liedtke et al. 2020). We surveyed twenty transects along each trail, located approximately every ca. 35 m of elevation starting at the trailhead, avoiding areas with secondary trails. Each transect consisted of three 2 m x 10 m plots arranged in a T-shape, for a total of 120 transects (360 plots) (Fig. 2). In each plot, we identi ed and estimated the cover of all vascular plant species, both native and non-native. To estimate the level of livestock activity (cows, horses and mules), we estimated dung density on each plot (Ender et al. 2017). We collected plant specimens that could not be identi ed in the eld and subsequently identi ed them with herbarium specimens and taxonomic keys in the Ruiz Leal Herbarium of the Argentine Institute for Dryland Research (IADIZA, CONICET Science and Technology Center, Mendoza). We classi ed species according to their origin and life forms using the database from the Darwinion Botanical Institute (Instituto de Botánica Darwinion 2018). We recorded the trail track, elevation and transect location with a GPS device and later processed them with QGIS and R software to determine the distance of each transect to the start of the trail.