The purpose of PPF-Alpine is to elucidate the Quaternary history (last 2.6 million years) of alpine biomes, based on the notion that their dynamic past may hold key insights for their future resilience. Hence, looking into the past can provide the empirical foundation for anticipating ecological responses to global warming and perhaps provide evidence for a more optimistic future.
To decipher the biogeographical history of alpine diversity, PPF-Alpine has two underlying principles:
- We incorporate cross-disciplinary lines of research into one joint research project integrating expertise, tools, and data from paleoecology, biogeography, macroecology, glaciology, glacial geomorphology, and landscape modelling. This integration is essential to address one of the most important questions in biogeography, namely… ‘What causes global patterns of mountain biodiversity?‘
- We promote research that acknowledges and quantifies the legacy of long-term dynamics of the past in present-day biodiversity.
Current activities
We have a manuscript in review at Frontiers of Biogeography lead by PhD student Eline Rentier about reconstructing treelines in mountains around the world using downscaled paleoclimate datasets – More new hopefully soon!
We have a manuscript in preparation by PhD student Lotta Schultz who has compiled a global dataset of alpine biodiversity (plants, mammals, birds, reptiles) with great contributions from a global network of collaborators and experts – Estimated date of submission: Jan – 2025