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The Impacts of Vertebrate Grazers on Vegetation in European High Mountains

  • Chapter
Alpine Biodiversity in Europe

Part of the book series: Ecological Studies ((ECOLSTUD,volume 167))

Abstract

The complex nature of herbivore-plant relationships has an extensive literature (e.g. Crawley 1997) and grazers play an important role in many ecosystems (Grime 1979; McNaughton 1983; Milchunas et al. 1988; Huntly 1991; Augustine and McNaughton 1998;Mulder 1999;Ritchie and Olff 1999). Grazing in the alpine zone of Europe has a long history and has caused large-scale vegetation changes especially in the treeline ecotone (e.g. Hallanaro and Pylvänäinen 2001). In this chapter, we give an overview of how mammalian grazers impact on the species composition, species richness, and canopy structure of the vegetation in the alpine zone and the treeline ecotone in Europe’s high mountains. However, the impacts of grazers in European alpine areas have been little investigated and there are controversial opinions about the general ecological significance of grazing in alpine environments. We highlight some problems deserving more attention in future. Plant names follow Adler et al. (1994); the nomenclature for animals is after Schaefer (1994).

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Authors
  1. B. Erschbamer
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  2. R. Virtanen
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  3. R. Nagy
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. McConnell Associates, 41 Eildon Street, Edinburgh, EH3 5JX, Scotland

    Laszlo Nagy

  2. Department of Vegetation Ecology and Conservation Biology, Institute for Ecology and Nature Conservation University of Vienna, Althanstr. 14, Vienna, 1091, Austria

    Georg Grabherr

  3. Institute of Botany, University of Basel, Schönbeinstr. 6, Basel, 4056, Switzerland

    Christian Körner

  4. Advisory Services, Scottish Natural Heritage, 2 Anderson Place, Edinburgh, EH6 5NP, Scotland

    Desmond B. A. Thompson

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© 2003 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Erschbamer, B., Virtanen, R., Nagy, R. (2003). The Impacts of Vertebrate Grazers on Vegetation in European High Mountains. In: Nagy, L., Grabherr, G., Körner, C., Thompson, D.B.A. (eds) Alpine Biodiversity in Europe. Ecological Studies, vol 167. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-18967-8_23

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-18967-8_23

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-62387-5

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