Articles producció científicaGeografia

Last-Century Forest Dynamics in a Highland Pyrenean National Park and Implications for Conservation

  • Identification data

    Identifier:  imarina:9405963
    Authors:  Rull, Valenti; Blasco, Arnau; Sigro, Javier; Vegas-Vilarrubia, Teresa
    Abstract:
    Ecological records from before and after the creation of natural parks are valuable for informing conservation and management but are often unavailable. High-resolution paleoecological studies may bridge the gap and provide the required information. This paper presents a 20th-century subdecadal reconstruction of vegetation and landscape dynamics in a national park of the Pyrenean highlands. The park lands had traditionally been used for cultivation, extensive grazing, forest exploitation, and hydroelectricity generation following the damming of numerous glacial lakes. A significant finding is that forests have dominated the landscape, with negligible changes in composition, and only experienced fluctuations in forest cover, influenced by both climatic and anthropogenic factors. The creation of the park (1955) and the initial restrictions on forest exploitation did not significantly affect vegetation cover or composition. Major forest expansion did not occur until several decades later, 1980, when the park was enlarged and forest exploitation was further restricted. This expansion peaked in the 1990s, coinciding with a warming trend and a decrease in fire incidence, before declining due to warmer and drier climates. This decline was coeval with the ongoing global forest dieback and may be exacerbated by the predicted global warming in this century, which could also increase fire incidence due to dead-wood accumulation. Currently, the main threats are global warming/drying, fire, and tourism intensification. Similar high-resolution paleoecological records in protected areas are globally scarce and would be capable in providing the long-term ecological scope required to properly understand forest dynamics and optimize conservation measures.
  • Others:

    Link to the original source: https://www.mdpi.com/2223-7747/13/8/1144
    APA: Rull, Valenti; Blasco, Arnau; Sigro, Javier; Vegas-Vilarrubia, Teresa (2024). Last-Century Forest Dynamics in a Highland Pyrenean National Park and Implications for Conservation. Plants-Basel, 13(8), 1144-. DOI: 10.3390/plants13081144
    Paper original source: Plants-Basel. 13 (8): 1144-
    Article's DOI: 10.3390/plants13081144
    Journal publication year: 2024
    Entity: Universitat Rovira i Virgili
    Paper version: info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
    Record's date: 2024-12-21
    URV's Author/s: Sigro Rodríguez, Francisco Javier
    Department: Geografia
    Licence document URL: https://repositori.urv.cat/ca/proteccio-de-dades/
    Publication Type: Journal Publications
    Author, as appears in the article.: Rull, Valenti; Blasco, Arnau; Sigro, Javier; Vegas-Vilarrubia, Teresa
    licence for use: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/
    Thematic Areas: Plant sciences, Plant science, Geociências, Ecology, evolution, behavior and systematics, Ecology, Ciências ambientais, Ciências agrárias i, Astronomia / física
    Author's mail: javier.sigro@urv.cat, javier.sigro@urv.cat
  • Keywords:

    Trees
    Too
    Responses
    Pinus-uncinata
    Pb-210
    Paleoecology
    National parks
    Forest dynamics
    Conservation
    Conservatio
    Climate change
    Climate
    Anthropogenic impact
    Ecology
    Evolution
    Behavior and Systematics
    Plant Science
    Plant Sciences
    Geociências
    Ciências ambientais
    Ciências agrárias i
    Astronomia / física
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