FS 3.103: Creating knowledge about alpine-treeline ecotones

Alpine-treeline ecotones mark the transition from mountain forest to alpine vegetation in mountains worldwide. As the physical realisation of the thermal limit to tree growth, these ecotones should respond strongly to climate warming, but additional limitations at various spatial scales lead to large variation in the observed responses. These include land management, natural disturbances, climatic and edaphic stress factors, tree population processes, and biotic interactions. To understand treeline dynamics, all of these limitations and the interactions among them need to be understood, which requires combining scientific disciplines and information gathered by many different methodological approaches. Important disciplines include plant ecology, ecophysiology, dendroecology, palaeoecology, human and physical geography, soil science, and (micro)climatology, while relevant approaches include field and lab experiments, field observations, remote sensing, and modelling. This session aims to bring together scientists studying alpine treeline ecotones from different scientific perspectives, with different methods and in different geographical contexts, in order to show the breadth of current treeline research. The session will combine regular talks and flash talks introducing posters. A related workshop then aims to synthesize and connect these different angles, methods and contexts. Also closely related is a pre-conference field trip for the 50th anniversary of the Stillberg treeline experiment near Davos, on September 12, before the #IMC25, offering an additional opportunity to discuss treeline research and visit this unique long-term treeline research experiment.