Abstract:
The Ecuadorian High Andes are a target region for conservation and sustainable management national policies, due to their sensitivity and vulnerability to environmental changes. However, there are still severe knowledge gaps, and scientific information derived from quantitative experiments and long-term biodiversity monitoring processes is essential to reinforce the development of adaptation guidelines for High Andean ecosystems in face of global changes. In order to contribute to the understanding and documentation of climate change impacts on paramo plant communities, and to determine specific climate warming effects on physiological adaptations present on their plant species, two GLORIA sites, the Pichincha Volcanic Complex and the Antisana Ecological Reserve have been established in the Ecuadorian High Andes in 2012 and 2013, respectively. In these, long-term changes on páramo diversity and community structure were studied through the establishment of vegetation monitoring regions following the protocol of the Global Observation Research Initiative in Alpine Environments (GLORIA), which included vegetation composition and cover changes recorded at 1 x 1 m plots, and soil temperature recorded at an hourly basis. At this time, both sites have been resurveyed after five years of establishing the baseline. We present here the preliminary results from the resurvey of eight summits, analyzing species cover changes, species turnover, substrate changes and their relation to the climatic data recorded during these first five years.