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Factors affecting primary succession of glacier foreland vegetation in the European Alps

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Abstract

Vegetation succession on glacier forelands has been well-studied. However, most of the studies investigated only one or few glacier forelands. We studied regional variations in vegetation succession on 16 glacier forelands in the European Alps. To improve our understanding of how vegetation succession is regulated by environmental conditions, we took edaphic and climatic factors into account. We collected vegetation data in three stages (early; middle; late) along a successional gradient on glacier forelands in the Eastern and Western European Alps. The progressions of species richness, vegetation cover and composition during primary succession were compared between these two regions. In addition, the effects of climatic and edaphic factors and grazing were tested. Our results reveal that the vegetation from the early stage did not differ between the regions and different elevations. With progressing time, and especially in the late successional stage, several vegetation differences emerged. The forelands of the Western Alps already developed to open shrubland, while the forelands of the Eastern Alps so far only developed toward grassland. Surprisingly, these differences cannot be explained by different precipitation amounts, but possibly by different regional species pools and elevations of the treelines. We conclude that a complex of edaphic factors closely related to terrain age, regional differences in the species pool, and the different elevation of the treeline in the eastern and western Alps mostly influenced later stages of primary succession on glacier forelands.

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Acknowledgments

We are Grateful to Prof. Dr. Jürg Stöcklin (University of Basel) for providing valuable comments on the design of the study. We want to thank Dr. Yvonne Bachmann (University of Frankfurt) for help with processing environmental data and Dr. Markus Bernhardt-Römermann (University of Jena) and Felix Heydel (University of Frankfurt) for providing help with statistics. This study was partly funded by the research funding program ‘LOEWE–Landes-Offensive zur Entwicklung Wissenschaftlich-ökonomischer Exzellenz’ of Hesse’s Ministry of Higher Education, Research and the Arts. Finally, we are Grateful to two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.

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    Authors and Affiliations

    1. Institute of Ecology, Evolution and Diversity, Goethe-University, Max-von-Laue-Straße 13, 60438, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

      Katharina Schumann & Oliver Tackenberg

    2. Biodiversity and Climate Research Center (BiK-F), Senckenberganlage 25, 60325, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

      Katharina Schumann

    3. REVITAL Integrative Naturraumplanung GmbH, Nußdorf 71, 9990, Nußdorf-Debant, Austria

      Susanne Gewolf

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    1. Katharina Schumann
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    Correspondence to Oliver Tackenberg.

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    K. Schumann, S. Gewolf are contributed eqaully to this work.

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    Schumann, K., Gewolf, S. & Tackenberg, O. Factors affecting primary succession of glacier foreland vegetation in the European Alps. Alp Botany 126, 105–117 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00035-016-0166-6

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