Abstract
Land-use changes are considered to be the major driving forces of changes in ecosystem function and dynamics, and in landscape pattern, and may exert a major impact on global climate changes. In the ecologically sensitive mountain areas there is a particular need for integrated research on effects of land-use changes, which identifies major processes and indicators for sustainable rural development. The EU-Framework-IV-TERI project ECOMONT investigates ecological effects of land-use changes in European mountain areas. The present volume provides an integrated publication of the concepts and methods developed and applied within ECOMONT, merging a broad range of state-of-the-art methods into a novel perspective of interdisciplinary ecosystem research. The approach is illustrated by a number of project results. The volume covers a vast range of topics, including spatial patterns and processes (GIS, remote sensing), plant, ecosystem and landscape pools and fluxes of carbon, water and nitrogen, functional biodiversity, plant-animal interactions and potential risks. This volume shows up the possibilities of interdisciplinary ecosystem research of relevance far beyond the topic treated.