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Vegetation of the Tropical High Mountains

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Abstract

In the tropical high mountains with year-round rain, lowland rainforests are followed by oreo-tropical laurophyllous mountain rainforests with a high proportion of lianas and epiphytes. Above the cloud condensation zone, where precipitation is distinctly lower, oreo-tropical heath forests often occur. In the alpine belt, grassland composed of temperate tussock grasses and giant rosette plants dominates, whereas in the dry tropical high mountains, there are mainly high mountain steppes, shrub and grass semi-deserts and deserts. Prickly grasses and hard cushion plants are characteristic. Salt pans form in the most arid regions. Despite the alpine belt being situated above 4000–5000 m a.s.l., the thousands of years of settlement history have left noticeable traces, as the example of the Andean genus Polylepis shows.

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  1. TUM School of Life Sciences, The Technical University of Munich, Freising, Germany

    Jörg S. Pfadenhauer

  2. Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Frank A. Klötzli

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Pfadenhauer, J.S., Klötzli, F.A. (2020). Vegetation of the Tropical High Mountains. In: Global Vegetation. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49860-3_5

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