Monitoring snowbed vegetation in the Pyrenees: FloraPyr Interreg project

Abstract

The FLORAPYR project (European Interreg project for years 2016-2019) is the continuation of a previous European project (2012-2014). One of our main objectives is to develop a unified monitoring protocol for snowbed vegetations within the Pyrenean range in the context of global warming, involving eight conservation and research organisations from three countries. Among the different plant communities inhabiting snowpatches, we focus on those dominated by Salix herbacea L. (Salicion herbaceae Br.-Bl. 1948). Our monitoring specifically aims at recording the floristic composition, the phenology and the environmental conditions – microclimate and soil – in the permanent plots. As accessing the different localities can be a challenging and time consuming process, the protocol was developed to ensure that the time invested in monitoring each site is limited to a few hours, thereby maximising the data collected. In addition, the response of Salix herbacea L. to warming will be assessed by means of open top chambers, set in four representative localities. We chose 14 snowbed localities distributed throughout the whole Pyrenees. In each locality, we established three permanent plots of 3 × 1 m, divided into 12 subplots of 0.5 × 0.5 m, following the snowmelt gradient and including the optimum and the margins of the Salix herbacea L. populations. Surveys are conducted four times yearly, every three weeks between the first week of July and the second week of September. We present our first results regarding the ongoing characterisation of Pyrenean Salix herbacea L. stands in terms of floristic richness, phenology and microclimatic conditions.