Abstract
In mountains, the upper limit to the distribution of forests, i.e., the alpine timberline, separates as a fairly sharp discontinuity the usually closed forest from the treeless alpine heath-grassland. In principle there are three possible causes for the upper survival limit of trees on mountains with seasonally fluctuating climates, i.e., outside the tropics:
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1)
Negative carbon balance
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2)
Arrested phenological cycle
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3)
Inadequate resistance to deleterious factors
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© 1979 Springer-Verlag Berlin · Heidelberg
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Tranquillini, W. (1979). Synopsis. In: Physiological Ecology of the Alpine Timberline. Ecological Studies, vol 31. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-67107-4_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-67107-4_9
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-67109-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-67107-4
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