2024-03-23 06:29:17
ROMA. The alpine vegetationespecially shrubs, are at risk due to climate changes, which are progressively reducing the snow throughout the Alps. One of the threats is the increasingly nutrient-poor soil due to the alteration of the invisible balance between plants and microorganisms. This is indicated by the study published in the journal Global Change Biology, led by the British University of Manchester group led by Arthur Broadbent. Mountain ranges are among the fastest-warming and rapid-warming environments transformation of ecosystems, in particular with the upward movement of vegetation, which requires low temperatures. “The highest mountains – said Broadbent – are like canaries in mines”, that is, they are the most sensitive spies to verify what will soon be visible in other places too. The study, conducted in collaboration betweenAustrian University of Innsbruck and the German Helmotz Center, analyzed how snow cover is rapidly changing the invisible seasonal relationships between plants and soil microorganisms, two groups that cyclically compete for nutrients in the soil. In a cyclical way, after the snow melts the plants begin to grow and buy with soil microorganisms for nutrients thus shifting the storage of many organic compounds from the soil to the plants but then, with the arrival of the cold, many plants die and the nutrients are returned to the soil again. To regulate these phases is also the snow cover, the cover of which allows microorganisms to act as if they were protected by a blanket and at the same time protects the roots of plants. But the snows are coming rapidly reducing, so much so that a loss of up to 90% is estimated by the end of the century, and the dissolution could be brought forward by up to 10 weeks. A transformation that could profoundly alter the current delicate balanceto the point of decimating the alpine shrubs.
2024-03-23 06:29:17