OBJECTIVES

ECOMONT aims at investigating land-use changes in European Terrestrial Mountain Ecosystems. As a contribution to the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Initiative TERI, ECOMONT aims at a high degree of integration:

• to investigate which changes in the canopy structure occur due to land-use changes in agricultural and forestal Alpine ecosystems along a South/North research-transect across the Eastern Alps and how these changes affect the exchange processes with the atmosphere;
• to clear up how the changes in canopy structure are connected with species composition and performance, as well as with species competition and interaction;
• to understand the influence of land-use changes on soil organic matter (SOM) status and turnover, on biogeochemical (CO₂, N) and hydrological processes at the ecosystem level, and on the exchange processes between the ecosystems and the lower layers of the atmosphere;
• to extend this understanding to the landscape level by means of multimedia modelling activities;
• to compare the results from the Alps with those of other European Mountains (Spanish Pyrenees, Scottish Highlands);
• to develop functional analysis methods as a basis for the integrated management (sustainable development) of mountain ecosystems.

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