Relationship between climate change and vegetation distribution in the Mediterranean mountains: Manzanares Head valley, Sierra De Guadarrama (Central Spain)

Abstract

This work analyzes the consequences of climate change in the distribution of the Mediterranean high-mountain vegetation. A study area was chosen at the Sierra de Guadarrama, in the center of the Iberian Peninsula (1,795 to 2,374 m asl). Climate change was analyzed from the record of 18 variables regarding temperature, rainfall and snowfall over the period 1951-2000. The permanence of snow cover (1996)(1997)(1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004), landforms stability and vegetation distribution in 5 years (1956, 1972, 1984, 1991 and 1998) were all analyzed. The Nival Correlation Level of the different vegetation classes was determined through their spatial and/or temporal relationship with several climatologic variables, snow cover duration and landforms. In order to quantify trends and major change processes, areas and percent changes were calculated, as well as Mean Annual Transformation Indices and Transition Matrices. The findings reveal that in the first part of the study period (up to the first half of the 1970s) the temperature rise in the mid-winter months caused the reduction of some classes of nival vegetation, while others expanded, favored by high rainfall, A. García-Romero (B)

Interannual variability and correlation of vegetation cover and precipitation in Eastern China

“…Climate variability has a large impact on terrestrial ecosystems and aboveground biomass production (Qi et al 2000;Nemani et al 2003;Fabricante et al 2009;García-Romero et al 2010). Vegetation, as an important component of terrestrial ecosystems, links pedosphere, atmosphere, and hydrosphere of the Earth's system (Salim et al 2008;Zhong et al 2010).…”

“…The regional and seasonal difference of precipitation, to a certain extent, determines the vegetation pattern. Since the 1980s, a number of researchers have examined the correlations between vegetation characteristics and precipitation at regional or national scales (e.g., Roerink et al 2003;Nezlin et al 2005;Bates et al 2006;Piao et al 2006;Suzuki et al 2007;Méndez-Barroso et al 2009;García-Romero et al 2010;Zhong et al 2010;Meng et al 2011). However, few studies have documented their relationships at fine temporal and spatial scales.…”

The Peñalara Mountain Meteorological Network (1999–2014): Description, Preliminary Results and Lessons Learned

“…Precipitation occurs mainly due to large and synoptic scale precipitation phenomena but with a marked orographic enhancement [15]. In recent years, this area has been subject to numerous scientific and multidisciplinary studies, such as in geomorphology [16][17][18][19][20], limnology [21][22][23], ecology [24], zoology [25][26][27][28], botanics [29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40] and meteorology and climate [7,14,15,18,[41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48].…”

Vulnerabilidad al cambio global en la alta montaña mediterránea

“…El análisis de las series climáticas en el Sistema Central en España indica un aumento de la temperatura media de más de 1.5 ºC en los últimos 40 años (Giménez Benavides et al 2007a) y una disminución de la cantidad de nieve (García-Romero et al 2010). Es bien conocido que las reducciones en el espesor de nieve acumulada y el adelanto del momento del deshielo están ocasionando importantes cambios en el funcionamiento de las plantas de alta montaña (Inouye et al 2002;Inouye 2008) y en nuestras montañas no es diferente (García-Romero et al 2010). Un trabajo de reconstrucción climática basado en calibración a partir de los restos fósiles de quironómidos depositados en el fondo de lagunas glaciares del Sistema Central ha permitido poner en un contexto temporal más largo estos cambios (Granados y Toro 2000).…”

“…Si bien los cambios han sido la norma, los incrementos térmicos de las últimas décadas no tienen parangón. Como consecuencia de este incremento térmico se han descrito desplazamientos altitudinales de la vegetación arbustiva en detrimento de la herbácea (Sanz-Elorza et al 2003;García-Romero et al 2010) o de las mariposas diurnas de Guadarrama, que han ascendido en promedio más de 200 m a lo largo de los últimos 35años (Wilson et al 2007). En las zonas de cumbre de la Sierra de Guadarrama se están detectando algunos cambios en riqueza con incorporaciones que no aparecen en el registro histórico, como es el caso de Cerastium ramosissimum.…”