Pioneer herbaceous vegetation on glacier forelands in the Italian Alps

Plant and arthropod colonisation of a glacier foreland in a peripheral mountain range

“…Plant succession develops in three distinct stages: a first one on 10 recently deglaciated terrain, a mid-successional one on the terrain ice free between 100 years ago and LIA and a late-successional one on the terrain ice free since LG, in agreement with Caccianiga and Andreis (2004). Arthropod colonisation seems to follow a more gradual pattern 15 where two main arthropod assemblages (a pioneer and a late-successional ones) seamlessly overlap in the intermediate stages, in agreement with Kaufmann (2001).…”

“…Within the Alps, such dynamics were investigated in a wide range of geographical situations (e.g. Burga et al 40 2010;Caccianiga and Andreis 2004;Lüdi 1955Lüdi , 1958Pirola and Credaro 1993;Raffl et al 2006). Arthropod successions were also investigated, even though the studies are fewer and more recent (e.g.…”

Nitrogen and phosphorus availability at early stages of soil development in the Damma glacier forefield, Switzerland; implications for establishment of N2-fixing plants

“…4b, c). In the pioneer stages symbiotic N 2 -fixing plants were absent, as is usual in the pioneer stages of glacial forefields in the Alps (Caccianiga and Andreis 2004;Cannone et al 2008;Ellenberg 1996;Matthews 1992). In areas with low N-deposition like Puca Glacier in the Andes, Glacier Bay, Alaska and Franz Josef Glacier, New Zealand (approximately 1 kg N ha −1 y −1 ), N 2 -fixation is abundant in the pioneer stages of succession (Chapin et al 1994;Menge and Hedin 2009;Schmidt et al 2008).…”

“…N 2 -fixing plants (symbionts) were consistently found to be dominant at recently deglaciated sites in some well-studied glacier forefields, such as Glacier Bay, Alaska (Chapin et al 1994), Franz Joseph Glacier, New Zealand (Menge and Hedin 2009), and Santa Ines Island, Magellan Straits (Pérez et al 2014). However, this appears not to be the case for the European Alps, where N 2 -fixing plants are usually absent from plant communities that are established during the first 30 years after deglaciation, and become significant parts of the vegetation only during later successional stages (Caccianiga and Andreis 2004;Cannone et al 2008;Ellenberg 1996;Matthews 1992). Göransson et al (2014) suggested that this might be due to the deposition of N, which is funnelled into N-hotspots thereby removing the Nlimitation favouring non-N 2 -fixing plants.…”

Weathering-Associated Bacteria from the Damma Glacier Forefield: Physiological Capabilities and Impact on Granite Dissolution

“…Increasing global atmospheric temperatures over the last decades have resulted in the recession of alpine glaciers (18). Forefields of temperate alpine glaciers provide unique opportunities to study initial soil formation as well as microbial and plant succession along the chronosequences (12,26,34,36). The forefields close to the glacier terminus are initially vegetation free and consist mainly of rock material with high fractions of silt-sized grains with low C and N content and small amounts of available nutrients (14).…”