Investigations of slope erosion in the Northern Limestone Alps

Author(s):  
Michael Becht
Keyword(s):  
Humanities ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 17
Author(s):  
Sean Ireton

Focusing on the so-called Nördliche Kalkalpen or Northern Limestone Alps of Germany and Austria, I will discuss how human interaction with these mountains during the age of the Anthropocene shifts from scientific and athletic exploration to commercial and industrial exploitation. More specifically, I will examine travel narratives by the nineteenth-century mountaineers Friedrich Simony and Hermann von Barth, juxtaposing their respective experiences in diverse Alpine subranges with the environmental history of those regions. This juxtaposition harbors a deeper paradox, one that can be formulated as follows: Whereas Simony and Barth both rank as historically important Erschließer of the German and Austrian Alps, having explored their crags and glaciers in search of somatic adventure and geoscientific knowledge, these very sites of rock and ice were about to become so erschlossen by modernized tourism that one wonders where the precise boundaries between individual-based discovery and technology-driven development lie. In other words, during the nineteenth century a kind of Dialektik der Erschließung (a variation on Horkheimer and Adorno’s Dialektik der Aufklärung) manifests itself in the increasing anthropogenic alteration of the Alps.


Plants ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (10) ◽  
pp. 1320 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michaela Kropik ◽  
Harald G. Zechmeister ◽  
Christian Fuxjäger

Knowledge about the epixylic moss Buxbaumia viridis has increased significantly due to the monitoring obligation under the Habitats Directive. However, there are still open questions about its dispersal, as the wind plays a limited role in forest ecosystems, and vectors have been suspected but not yet studied systematically for this species. Here, we present data on potential vectors of Buxbaumia viridis collected for the first time with the help of cameras, completed by monitoring the fate of sporophytes during their life cycle in the Limestone Alps National Park in Austria over a period of two years. Young, green sporophytes appeared mainly in autumn, with the highest number in October. Most of them survived winter and spring but did not exceed the age of 14 months. The sharpest decline in capsules occurred in summer when mature, and the lowest number of sporophytes appeared at the end of August. Most likely, mice seem to be responsible for this loss, as the photos from the wildlife cameras suggest, and should be considered both as predators and vectors. Birds should be considered as vectors, too. In summary, most of the reproductive biomass is sacrificed in favor of more effective dispersal, including over longer distances.


Trees ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 819-829 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Hartl-Meier ◽  
Christoph Dittmar ◽  
Christian Zang ◽  
Andreas Rothe

2010 ◽  
Vol 28 (5) ◽  
pp. 637-646 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nella Pokorny ◽  
Christian Fesl ◽  
Michael Schagerl ◽  
Johann Waringer

2002 ◽  
Vol 9 (S2) ◽  
pp. 3-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Friedl Herman ◽  
Stefan Smidt ◽  
Michael Englisch ◽  
Manfred Gärtner ◽  
Robert Jandl ◽  
...  

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