Sierra Nevada Global Change Observatory (OBSNEV)

Regino Jesús Zamora Rodríguez (Principal Investigator)

All the information contained in Sinfonevada was gathered by TRAGSA (Transformación Agraria S.A.), a public company funded by the Spanish Ministry of the Environment. The Sierra Nevada Global Change Observatory is funded by the Andalusian Regional Government (via Environmental Protection Agency) and by the Spanish Government (via “Fundación Biodiversidad”, which is a Public Foundation).

Sierra Nevada (Andalusia, SE Spain), is a mountainous region with an altitudinal range between 860 m and 3482 m a.s.l. covering more than 2000 km² (Figure 1). The climate is Mediterranean, characterized by cold winters and hot summers, with pronounced summer drought (July-August). The annual average temperature decreases in altitude from 12–16°C below 1500 m to 0°C above 3000 m a.s.l., and the annual average precipitation is about 600 mm. Additionally, the complex orography of the mountains causes strong climatic contrasts between the sunny, dry south-facing slopes and the shaded, wetter north-facing slopes. Annual precipitation ranges from less than 250 mm in the lowest parts of the mountain range to more than 700 mm in the summit areas. Winter precipitation is mainly in the form of snow above 2000 m of altitude. The Sierra Nevada mountain range hosts a high number of endemic plant species (c. 80; Lorite et al. 2007) for a total of 2, 100 species of vascular plants (25% and 20% of Spanish and European flora, respectively), being considered one of the most important biodiversity hotspots in the Mediterranean region (Blanca et al. 1998).

This mountain range has several legal protections: Biosphere Reserve MAB Committee UNESCO; Special Protection Area and Site of Community Importance (Natura 2000 network); and National Park. The area includes 61 municipalities with more than 90, 000 inhabitants. The main economic activities are agriculture, tourism, cattle raising, beekeeping, mining, and skiing (Bonet el al. 2010).

Sierra Nevada Global Change Observatory (OBSNEV) (Bonet et al. 2011) is a long-term research project which is being undertaken at Sierra Nevada Biosphere Reserve (SE Spain). It is intended to compile the information necessary for identifying as early as possible the impacts of global change, in order to design management mechanisms to minimize these impacts and adapt the system to new scenarios (Aspizua et al. 2010, Bonet el al. 2010). The general objectives are to:

• Evaluate the functioning of ecosystems in the Sierra Nevada Nature Reserve, their natural processes and dynamics over a medium-term timescale.

• Identify population dynamics, phenological changes, and conservation issues regarding key species that could be considered indicators of ecological processes.

• Identify the impact of global change on monitored species, ecosystems, and natural resources, providing an overview of trends of change that could help foster ecosystem resilience.

• Design mechanisms to assess the effectiveness and efficiency of management activities performed in the Sierra Nevada in order to implement an adaptive management framework.

• Help to disseminate information of general interest concerning the values and importance of Sierra Nevada.

The Sierra Nevada Global Change Observatory has four cornerstones (Figure 2): 1) a monitoring program with 40 methodologies that collect information on ecosystem functioning; 2) an information system to store and manage all the information gathered; 3) a plan to promote adaptive management of natural resources using the knowledge amassed through the monitoring programme; and 4) an outreach program to disseminate all the available information to potential users.

The Sierra Nevada Global Change Observatory is linked to other national (Zamora and Bonet 2011) and international monitoring networks: GLOCHAMORE (Global Change in Mountain Regions) (Björnsen 2005), GLOCHAMOST (Global Change in Mountain Sites) (Schaaf 2009), LTER-Spain (Long-Term Ecological Research).

Sierra Nevada Global Change Observatory is collecting socio-ecological information on the major ecosystem types found in Sierra Nevada. This information is being integrated in an Information System (http://obsnev.es/linaria.html - Pérez-Pérez et al. 2012. (Free access upon registration). The dataset described here is a good example of this idea. We have created a relational database to store the floristic inventories prepared in 2004–2005. Thanks to this work, all this valuable and unique information will be available to scientists and environmental managers worldwide.

Most of the species recorded in the inventories belong to class Magnoliopsida (6, 042 records; 76.28 %) and Liliopsida (1, 171 records; 14.78 %). The top 10 of the orders (Figure 3) include Poales (1153 records; 14.56 %) for the class Liliopsida, Lamiales (1062 records; 13.41 %) for Magnoliopsida and Pinales (569 records; 7.18 %). In these collection, 57 families are represented, with Poaceae, Fabaceae, and Lamiaceae being the families with major number of records (Table 1) (Figure 3). The collection includes 270 taxa belonging to 159 genera, Pinus and Thymus being the most represented ones in the database. There are 24 threatened taxa (Table 2).

The SINFONEVADA forest inventory was conducted in the main forests of Sierra Nevada mountainous region (Figure 1) (for a description of Sierra Nevada see study area of the Project section). The main forest units of Sierra Nevada (Figure 5) are pine plantations (Pinus halepensis Mill., Pinus pinaster Ait., Pinus nigra Arnold subsp. salzmannii (Dunal) Franco, and Pinus sylvestris L.), evergreen holm oak Quercus ilex subsp. ballota (Desf.) Samp forests, deciduous broadleaf forests (Quercus pyrenaica Willd, Acer opalus subsp. granatense (Boiss.) Font Quer & Rothm., Sorbus aria (L.) Crantz), and autochthonous pine Pinus sylvestris L. var. nevadensis Christ forests.

36°52'12"N and 37°15'36"N Latitude; 3°41'24"W and 2°33'36"W Longitude

2004–2005

http://www.gbif.es:8080/ipt/manage/metadata-collections.do?r=sinfonevada

This inventory was undertaken in 2004 and the database generated contains information relative to forest attributes and occurrence data (see below). This information, originally stored in a Microsoft Access database, has been integrated into the project’s information system.

Study extent description: The floristic inventories were conducted at the main forest units of the Sierra Nevada (Andalusia, SE Spain). Forest cover in Sierra Nevada is dominated by pine plantations (Pinus halepensis Mill., Pinus pinaster Ait., Pinus nigra Arnold subsp. salzmannii (Dunal) Franco, and Pinus sylvestris L.) covering approximately 40, 000 ha. Most of them were planted in the period 1960–1980. The main native forests of Sierra Nevada are dominated by the evergreen holm oak Quercus ilex subsp. ballota (Desf.) Samp. occupying low and medium mountain areas (8, 800 ha.) and Pyrenean oak Quercus pyrenaica Willd ranging from 1, 100 to 2, 000 m a.s.l., covering about 2, 000 ha. Autochthonous pine Pinus sylvestris var. nevadensis forests can also be found in small patches at high altitudes with a characteristically low tree cover.

Sampling description: SINFONEVADA Forest Inventory was established over an extensive network of 600 long-term permanent plots distributed within the main forest units of the Sierra Nevada: pine plantations, evergreen Quercus ilex forests, and deciduous broadleaf forests. The network of plots is a random sample stratified by land cover and altitude, covering a gradient of 974–2439 m a.s.l. (Figure 5).

Each inventory plot has three sampling units: i) a forest inventory plot (20 × 20 m); ii) a 5-m radius subplot for the estimation of the regeneration; iii) and a 10-m radius subplot for species composition and abundance.

Each live tree with a diameter at breast height (dbh) > 7.5 cm was tallied by species and dbh in the forest inventory plot. This information was used to calculate forest attributes (tree basal area, tree volume, canopy cover). The regeneration was measured in the 5-m radius subplot (78.5 m² in area) as seedling abundance of the main tree species.

The species composition and diversity was recorded within a 10-m radius subplot (314 m² in area) using the Braun-Blanquet cover-abundance scale (Braun-Blanquet 1964).

Prior to the storing of this information in the database, all the data were assessed by a quality-control process. Each sampling plot was checked to ensure that the geographical coordinates were correct. We used the databases of International Plant Names Index (IPNI 2013) and Catalogue of Life/Species 2000 (Roskov et al. 2013) to verify the taxonomical classification. The specimens were taxonomically identified using Flora Iberica (Castroviejo et al. 1986-2005) for the published families while the rest of taxa were identified according to Valdés et al. (1987) and Tutin et al. (1964–1980).