Ecotones as Complex Arenas of Disturbance, Climate, and Human Impacts: The Trans-Andean Forest-Steppe Ecotone of Northern Patagonia

Abstract

Terrestrial ecotones are possibly the most dynamic regions of the world where global change impacts will earlier become most evident. It has been therefore suggested that ecotones could be considered indicators of global changes where monitoring efforts should be primarily directed (di Castri et al. 1988; Nielson 1991). A basic assumption for this is that small changes in some (limiting) condition, bottom up resource or top down process will, when approaching some threshold, produce rapid and abrupt responses such as shifts in the distribution of dominant species and associated communities or patches.