Del Valle al Monte: Altitudinal Patterns of Agricultural Activities in the Patate-Pelileo Area of Ecuador

Altitudinal limits of 230 economic crop species in Papua New Guinea

“…In Ethiopia, Alkämper (1973) classed altitudinal zones as main cultivation, sporadic cultivation and extreme cultivation. Brush (1976) distinguished between the 'effective' crop limits and 'absolute' limits in Peru, while in Ecuador Stadel (1986) used the terms 'major belt' and 'minor belt' for altitudinal ranges.…”

Monitoring of the Ecuadorian mountain rainforest with remote sensing

“…This trend indicates that ecosystems dominated by humans expand and habitats degrade [23]. Governmental subsidies offered to the dairy industry because they are more profitable than crops [24] have prompted the replacement of forest with pasture [25]. Moreover, the formal Ecuadorian property laws that used to be executed by the Ecuadorian Institute for Agrarian Reform and Colonization (IERAC) required people settling in the tree-covered hinterlands to demonstrate "active occupation", i.e.…”

Anthropogenic Change in the Landscapes of Highland Ecuador

“…In modern times governmental subsidies offered to the dairy industry have prompted the replacement of forest with pasture (Stadel 1986). Milk, cheese, and other dairy products are more profitable than crops; in many places good agricul-tural soils have been converted to pasture using introduced African kikuyu grass (Panicetum clandestinum).…”

“…Modern ecological literature often refers to the altitudinal forest border as the "tree line" and to the latitudinal ecotone as the "timberline" (Korner 1998). In the Tropics, harsh environmental conditions are viewed as the limiting factor for tree growth above a given altitude, mostly correlated with the threshold of the io°C mean July isotherm, or the location of the frost line (Stadel 1992;Klotzli 1997;Korner 1999). This is analogous to tropical-to-polar plant distribution, a traditional argument (Troll 1973;Lauer 1981).…”