Alpine grasslands in LTER Slovakia – air pollution and climate in focus

Slovak alpine is well studied and documented, less are known impacts of global change and several projects are recently focused to this issue. The GLORIA project established a worldwide long-term observation network for study of climate change impacts on mountain biota. Permanent observation sites were established in the Tatry Mts. in 2000–2001, followed in 2008 by the first complex re-sampling of vegetation allowing identification of changes against the original data. The results show strong decrease of the presence and abundance of lichens. The experimental study of air pollution and related acidification and eutrophication in Western Tatra Mts. indicates that several decades of increased N deposition resulted in soil acidification that brought alpine ecosystems close to toxic conditions with negative consequences to biodiversity, primary production and ecosystem stability. In new experimental site (Low Tatra Mts.) we study effects of nitrogen pollution and climate warming (open-top chamber approach) to alpine grasslands.