ABSTRACT
Mountain ecosystems provide numerous services, such as regional freshwater supplies, but are potentially sensitive to climatic shifts because of their topographic complexity and strong environmental gradients. Like the Arctic and Antarctic regions, the higher elevations of many mountain systems have experienced relatively greater climatic change over the past several decades than lowland systems (Bradley et al, 2004). Studying climatic change impacts to relatively intact mountain protected areas offers the opportunity to better understand the mechanisms underlying ecological responses and to monitor rates of change without the confounding effects of land-use/land-cover changes that are typical of managed areas. As the regional landscapes around them change, mountain protected areas, such as national parks, become increasingly important to society as biodiversity reserves and engines of economic growth through tourism. What happens to mountain protected areas under future climate change matters more to regional human populations now than it did in the past.
