University of Pavia, Department of Earth and Environmental Science

Francesco Porro

Tutor: Andrea Mondoni

High mountain ecosystems are defined by low temperatures and thus are considered very sensitive to the impacts of climate warming. In this context, seedling recruitment represent a major bottleneck in the life history of plants, affecting their evolution and distribution.

Hence, a better understanding of the impacts of climate change on plant regeneration from seeds is urgently needed in order to predict future plant species changes in alpine plant communities and landscape.

In this project, the impact of global warming on seed germination and seed longevity of several species from different European Alpine regions will be investigated in order to determine if, and to which extent, the increasing of the temperatures may affect their germinability.

To this end, a pool of 4-5 Target Regions (TR) established by the project GLORIA (http://www.gloria.ac.at/index.html) will be chosen as study area to figure out a list of target species (TS) more sensitive to climate warming. Seeds of these species will be used for laboratory tests, with the aim to investigate the relation between the germination trait and the population dynamics recorded through the years.