CaFeCiCo 23 /04/2026: The effects of climate change on snowbeds: from community structure to plant traits.

Snowbeds are those alpine environments highly dependent on a long-lasting snow cover duration, resulting in a markedly shortened growing season for plants to complete their life cycles. In the Pyrenees, a set of glacial relicts represent the characteristic flora of these habitats, but nowadays they are very threatened by the effects of climate change. The increases in temperature, together with shifts in precipitation regimes, are leading to progressively earlier snowmelt, thereby favouring the more generalist species growing in adjacent alpine grasslands, which are more competitive than snowbed specialists.
The study of these plant communities and their characteristic species provides valuable insight into the mechanisms underlying shifts in community structure, as well as into species-specific responses to environmental changes.

Speaker: Estela Illa Bachs, lecturer. Group of Geobotany and Vegetation Mapping. University of Barcelona.

The seminar will be delivered in spanish.

Date: Thursday, April 23, at 11:00 a.m.

Venue: Assembly Hall, Valencian Institute for Agricultural Research (IVIA)
CV‑315 road, km 10.7 – Moncada, Valencia.

CIDE Communication