ABSTRACT
The potential impact of future climatic changes on mountain ecosystems and nature reserves has become an increasingly important issue in the study of long-term biodiversity management and protection (McNeely, 1990; Peters and Darling, 1985). The possibility of rapid changes in the climatic habitats of montane ecosystems due to industrial emissions of radiative gases raises many difficult questions concerning the vulnerability of montane nature reserves to environmental disruption in the future. Proposed changes in global temperatures and local precipitation patterns could significantly alter the altitudinal ranges of important species within existing mountain nature reserves and create additional environmental stresses on already fragile mountain ecosystems. Until recently, generalized speculations concerning the possible future movement of ecoclimatic habitats within mountain nature reserves have been put forth with only limited reference to actual mountain sites or application of geographic modelling methods (Peters and Darling, 1985; Hunter et al., 1988; Graham, 1988). However, current geographic analysis techniques now allow for the simulation of possible responses of both global and regional impacts of climate change on existing mountain nature systems (Halpin, 1992; Halpin and Secrett, in press; Leemans and Halpin, 1992; Halpin, 1994). This type of geographic analysis provides for the development and testing of more detailed hypotheses concerning global change and mountain environments.
