ABSTRACT
In mountainous regions forests fulfil a multitude of functions. They protect settlements from avalanches or landslides; they regulate runoff, thereby helping to prevent erosion; forests and meadows make a varied mountain landscape and provide the environment necessary for various recreational activities; they hold a large fraction of the world’s terrestrial carbon, and are also important carbon sequestering systems; finally, and not least, forests are exploited for fuel, pulpwood, and timber. Climatic changes may impact on all these functions (e.g., Bolin et al., 1986; Davis, 1990). However, the complex topography in mountains leads to a large spatial variability of climate, soil, and other site factors, which makes it difficult to assess their influence on forest dynamics. Moreover, via the tree species composition, edaphic factors such as soil organic matter and nutrient availability may have large effects on above functions (Pastor and Post, 1985; Shugart et al., 1986; Davis, 1990; Shugart, 1990). Therefore, in mountains it is more important to study the processes involved explicitly and in more details than in flat terrain.
