FP6 priority
1.1.6   Sustainable Development, Global Change and Ecosystems
1.6.3
Title of the proposal

Influence of the global climatic changes, natural and antropogenic stress factors on the biodiversity changes of the high-mountains ecosystems

Institute
Slovak Academy of Sciences, Institute of Landscape Ecology,
Stefanikova 3, P.O.Box 254, 81499 Bratislava, Slovak Republic
nic.savba.sk/sav/inst/uke
Contact
Name:
Peter BARANCOK, RNDr., CSc.
Phone:
+421 2 52494555
E-mail:
barancok@uke.savba.sk


Research subject for a potential FP6 project

High-mountain ecosystems are the components of natural environment mostly influenced by global climatic changes and negative factors of direct antropogenous impacts appearing in the respective area. Negative interferences or destruction of high-mountain environment cause irreversible changes connected with liquidation of significant components of nature. Biotic components of the high-mountain enviornment – vegetation and animals – very sensitively react to environmental changes. Negative impacts of global climatic changes and general environ-mental changes appear in the course of longer period and they are usually irreversible. Negative influences of man,s direct acivity are manifested in the course of shorter period, but they are more dynamic, often irreversible with different impact on the biota of the area. The knowledge of the effect of single influences and reaction of the components of natural environment on these influences enable to accept effective measures for protection or conservation of the most significant components of natural environment of high-mountain ecosystems.
In the past the Institute of Landscape Ecology SAS less worked on certain projects aimed also at the solution of the problem of impacts and consequences of human activity in mountain and high-mountain areas. The solution of these projects and their results were aimed mainly at selected smaller areas or at one selected problem. At present, the need of the complex solution of the given problem in wider context is emphasized. The Institute takes part in the solution of the tasks of changes in the biota of high-mountain environment under the influence of global changes of climate, but the problem is not complexly covered at all. There are not included all components of vegetation and animals of the mountain and high-mountain environment.


Recent international cooperation of the research team

Institute of Ecology and Conservation Biology, University of Vienna, Austria
Instituto Pirenaico de Ecologia, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, Spain
Department of Biological Sciences, University of Stirling, United Kingdom
Department of Land Ecology and Terrestrial Environments, University of Pavia, Italy
Laboratory „Alpine Ecosystems“ / Alpine Biology Centre at the Univ. J.Fourier, Grenoble, Franceand 16 another Institutions of the Europe


Proposer´s relevant publications related to the research subject

Barancok, P., Varsavova, M., 1996: The influence of tourism on the natural environment of the Belianske Tatry Mts. investigated on an educational hiking path situated in the locality Monkova dolina - Kopske sedlo and its near surroundings. Ekologia (Bratislava), 15, 4, p. 469-473.
Barancok, P., Varsavova, M., 1998: Influence of exogenous factors on the distribution of ceder pine-spruce forests and dwarf pine forests in the Belianske Tatry Mts. Ekologia (Bratislava), 17, 3, p. 242-254.
Barancok, P., 1999: The influence of tourism on the flora and vegetation in the Belianske Tatry Mts. In: M. Pietrzak (ed.) Geoekologiczne podstawy badania i planowania krajobrazu rekreacyjnego. Problemy ekologii krajobrazu tom 5. AWF - PAEK, Poznan, p. 197-208.
Varsavova, M., Barancok, P., 1999: Vulnerability of the selected high-mountain territory in the Belianske Tatry Mts. under the influence of an increasing anthropogenic impact. Ekologia (Bratislava), 18, p. 3-20.