Threats and opportunities in the face of global change in Spanish woodlands: the MONTES Consolider project

Abstract

Doblas-Miranda, E., Retana, J. (2011). Threats and opportunities in the face of global change in Spanish woodlands: the MONTES Consolider project. Ecosistemas 20(1):114-123

The world faces global change, where a combination of environmental and biotic disturbances (changes in atmospheric composition, climate change, land use change, changes in fire regime, introduction of exotic species, etc.) threat most natural ecosystems and the ecosystem services they provide, as carbon flow and reserves, water resources regulation and biodiversity, among others. The MONTES project emerges as a research program about the interaction between the drivers of global change and the ecosystem services in Mediterranean woodlands, with the main objective of providing forest management guidance on opportunities and adaptation to global change. This objective is organized around three axes that combine the analysis of the influence of global change on woodlands, the way in which woodlands may modulate the consequences of global change and the modification of these interactions through forest management. To that end, MONTES is structured in seven work packages which condense all the possible interactions among drivers and services: (1) interactions between woodlands and the atmosphere, (2) changes in carbon fixation in woodlands, (3) changes in species distribution caused by climate change, (4) consequences for water availability, (5) consequences of land use change and fragmentation for species conservation, (6) species vulnerability to fire and preventive management of large scale fires, (7) biological invasions and consequences to biodiversity, plus a transversal eight work package focussed in work packages interaction. The project includes plot, local and regional scales through published information and nine core study areas distributed throughout Spain, which include non-Mediterranean mountains (Pirineos and Montseny), Mediterranean mountains (Sierra Nevada, Alto Tajo and Prades) and lowlands (Garraf, Sierra de Segura and Doñana) and experimental crops. MONTES integrates the work of more than 90 scientists and technicians belonging to 11 Spanish research institutions in terrestrial ecology principally, besides prestigious foreign collaboration. The project expects thus to consolidate in the long term a competitive and multidisciplinary research platform, open to future national and international collaborations. In the present article the project is presented, together with the principal ongoing research looking for a combination between the information obtained and the management guidance on adaptation and mitigation of global change.