ECOPICS

Altitude integrates changes in the various conditions that determine soil carbon (C) storage, including temperature, soil moisture, atmospheric pressure, litter input, radiation and soil weathering. Although soil C stocks generally augment with increasing elevation, the mechanisms by which this occurs are not known. Soil C sequestration is heavily influenced by input rates and decomposability of organic matter, transport to deeper soil horizons through macropores and physical protection in aggregate complexes. We will investigate how elevation acts as an environmental filter on belowground plant traits and soil microbial and faunal communities. We hypothesize that shifts in the ratio of functional groups due to climate, alter soil C sequestration rates in both tropical and temperate climates. However, elevational gradients are often affected by anthropogenic-induced gradients, which can be managed in a way that an elevational impacts on soil cannot. Therefore, using the same techniques, we will investigate how landuse gradients impact soil C sequestration along the elevational gradient. How landuse induced shifts in belowground plant traits, soil microbial and faunal diversity and functionality affects soil C cycling processes will be determined.

Land use change is widely recognized as a net source of greenhouse gas emissions at the global scale, mostly because these emissions are attributed to losses from aboveground terrestrial pools such as deforestation. Deforestation also impacts severely livelihoods, wildlife and soil quality. Finding alternatives to tree logging in mountain regions requires assessing and promoting ecosystem services. At Mexico’s highest mountain, Pico de Orizaba, deforestation in the cloud forest still continues, causing climate and ecological perturbations as well as major soil degradation. In Belledonne, French Alps, tree logging is controlled and the financial income of local communities is more recently assured by eco-tourism, although recent over-use of trails is accused of causing disturbance such as soil erosion. By performing a socio-economic impact assessment of the effects of ecotourism (actual or future), on local communities, we will draft a management plan with the aim of promoting a service(s) depending on the needs of those communities and integrating the results of the ECOPICS project.