Alpine vegetation in the context of climate change: A global review of past research and future directions

Abstract

Climate change is causing extensive alterations to ecosystems globally, with some more vulnerable than others. Alpine ecosystems, characterised by low-temperatures and cryophilic vegetation, provide ecosystems services for billions of people but are considered among the most susceptible to climate change. Therefore, it is timely to review research on climate change on alpine vegetation including assessing trends, topics, themes and gaps. Using a multicomponent bibliometric approach, we extracted bibliometric metadata from 3143 publications identified by searching titles, keywords and abstracts for research on ‘climate change’ and ‘alpine vegetation’ from Scopus and Web of Science. While primarily focusing on ‘alpine vegetation’, some literature that also assessed vegetation below the treeline was captured. There has been an exponential increase in research over 50 years, greater engagement and diversification in who does research, and where it is published and conducted, with increasing focus beyond Europe, particularly in China. Content analysis of titles, keywords and abstracts revealed that most of the research has focused on alpine grasslands but there have been relatively few publications that examine specialist vegetation communities such as snowbeds, subnival vegetation and fellfields. Important themes emerged from analysis of keywords, including treelines and vegetation dynamics, biodiversity, the Tibetan Plateau as well as grasslands and meadows. Traditional ecological monitoring techniques were important early on, but remote sensing has become the primary method for assessment. A key book on alpine plants, the IPCC reports and a few papers in leading journals underpin much of the research. Overall, research on this topic is increasing, with new methods and directions but thematic and geographical gaps remain particularly for research on extreme climatic events, and research in South America, in part due to limited capacity for research on these rare but valuable ecosystems.