Abstract
Climate change has tremendous effects on high mountain regions worldwide. Mountain plants are forced to migrate upslope to survive, while upper mountain slopes become increasingly unstable as permafrost thaws and rain- and snowfall change. Intense slope movement can limit plant migration and thereby threaten biodiversity, while plant colonization can reduce slope movement and protect from natural hazards. What will happen – “go or grow” – affects mountain infrastructure, lives and livelihoods of millions of people around the world. Yet, inadequate understanding of “biogeomorphic” feedbacks between moving slopes and plants severely limits future prediction: Will slope movement endanger plant migration and biodiversity, or will plant migration reduce slope movement and natural hazards? I hypothesize that this depends on the balance between slope movement intensity and plant species’ capacity to colonize, survive and reduce slope movements. My aim is to unravel mountain biogeomorphic feedbacks and quantify their effects on future slope movement hazards and biodiversity. Working in Swiss National Park (Switzerland) representative for many mountain regions across the world, I will be the first to investigate how moving mountain slopes and migrating mountain plants interact from plant root to landscape scales. Firstly, I will acquire unique field data linking plant traits to slope movement intensities to identify which groups of species can survive, stabilize and protect against slope movement. Secondly, I will combine state-of-the-art photogrammetry, remote sensing and vegetation mapping techniques to quantify how slope movement, vegetation and climatic changes interacted in the past decades. Thirdly, I will build an innovative slope movement-vegetation model to analyze when and where biogeomorphic feedbacks will amplify or mitigate future natural hazards and biodiversity. My research will break new ground by pinpointing the role of biogeomorphic feedbacks in mountain natural hazard and biodiversity protection, thereby directly contributing to sustainable mountain development, biodiversity and disaster risk reduction goals.