The LUCSES (Forecasting impacts of land-use and climate change on ecosystem services from shrub-encroached mountain grassland) project is a joint project between the Alpine Ecology Laboratory (Grenoble) and the Institute for Ecology (Innsbruck, Austria). LUCSES will develop a plant trait based approach to the effects of shrub-encroachment following abandonment of mountain meadows on species composition, water and nutrient balances and thus the services of mountain meadows for humans. The core hypothesis of LUCSES is that shrub colonization results in a tipping point in relationships between traits and processes of nitrogen- and water cycling, and that this change can be related to characteristic traits of mountain shrubs and to mycorrhizal functions. LUCSES will comprise of: (1) in situ measurements of plant traits, mycorrhizal communities and water and nutrient cycling according to shrub encroachment; (2) lysimeter analyses of the effects of climate change (i.e. earlier snowmelt in France and summer drought in Austria) on water and nutrient budgets in herbaceous vs. encroached communities depending on their traits and mycorrhizal functions; (3) statistical modelling of ecosystem services of mountain shrub ecosystems.
Full posting: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1H_B-LwB7trQoHCPbFlZVVT9TYeU9ocAO/view?usp=sharing
