GloMEc
Global change in Mountain Ecosystems
INP Toulouse - ENSAT, Laboratoire d'Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Environnement, Axa Research Fund
p3mountains.org
Mountains are providing the livelihood for many people. They provide important resources, such as water, wood and grasslands for livestock. Mountains also provide a recreational landscape which is used by many tourists around the world. However, globally the negative impacts of global change on mountain freshwater ecosystems and their biota are expected to greatly outweigh potential benefits. Mountain ecosystems and the services they provide to society face multiple threats arising from global change and its interactions with socio-cultural, economic and political developments. In particular, high-altitude mountain freshwater ecosystems have been, and will continue to be, severely impacted by global change, threatening the livelihood of more than 50% of the human population. Climate and global change will favour chemical pollution in mountain freshwater ecosystems through meteorological processes working over long-distances and carrying pollutants from lowlands to high altitudes. Climate change may further destabilize ecosystems through extreme events, allowing human and wildlife pathogens to proliferate, increasing risks for human diseases. A serious reduction in the availability of clean water will be the result. The GloMEC team will produce indicators of change to inform the policy arena and decision making on the impact on human well-being, to advance international research in functional ecology and our understanding of future risks.
The project on video
Issues and key figures
Simplified scheme of "Global Change"
The AXA Chair in Functional Mountain Ecology
- Mountain ecosystems and the services they provide to society face multiple threats arising from global change and its interactions with socio-cultural, economic and political developments. In particular, high-altitude mountain freshwater ecosystems have been, and will continue to be, severely impacted by global change, threatening the livelihood of more than 50% of the human population. Climate and global change will favor chemical pollution in mountain freshwater ecosystems through meteorological processes working over long-distances and carrying pollutants from lowlands to high altitudes. Climate change may further destabilize ecosystems through extreme events, allowing human and wildlife pathogens to proliferate, increasing risks for human diseases. A serious reduction in the availability of clean water will be the result. The risks for human population growth, economic activity, land-use and urbanization will be important and need to be mitigated. Despite the importance of freshwater for human society, studies on the relationship between global change, pollution and pathogens remain scarce, not allowing to assess risks for ecosystem and human health. In the project GloMEC, pathogens and parasites are recognized as important stressors in freshwater ecosystems, as they can cause system-wide depletion of key species. That recognition is highly innovative and directive for a whole research field, as pathogen-induced changes directly influence biological communities, ecosystems, landscapes, and human activity. Such changes will lead to a deterioration of ecosystem functioning and ecosystem service provision to human society.
- The project GloMEC will use a pioneering multidisciplinary approach to analyze the interactomes between pathogen, the abiotic and biotic environment, and important socio-ecological components. Such an approach is an important asset for the National Polytechnic Institute of Toulouse (Toulouse INP) and the host laboratory EcoLab as it will extend the current research expertise. The work foreseen will influence future research in the field of functional ecology, disease ecology, and bioremediation and has the potential to improve well-being of millions of inhabitants for which the Pyrenees are the main resource of clean drinking water. GloMEC will employ food web analyses, refined in modern and novel network analyses linked to recent and past data on climate, land use, and biotic variables using the various analytical platforms and the expertise present at the host institution Toulouse INP. The working conditions at Toulouse INP are ideal allowing the GloMEC team to produce indicators of change to inform the policy arena and decision making on the impact on human well-being, to advance international research in functional ecology and our understanding of future risks and to increase the national and international visibility of research at Toulouse INP, EcoLab and the Toulouse region.