Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.2006, Page 119

ÚTBREIÐSLAN AV LÍVSHÆTTUM RAUNKIÆRS
NIÐAN EFTIR FJALLASÍÐUM í FØROYUM
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s>tion? If so, then at what altitude? What pa-
rarneters are responsible for the change? To
^hat extent are these parameters climatic?
i ho last of these questions stems from the
0riginal aim of our project, which was to
evaluate how the vegetation might change
ln a global climate change scenario.
In order to answer these questions, we
carried out quantitative sampling of the veg-
etation along altitudinal transects on five
haroese mountains. We also measured cli-
otatic and other environmental parameters
°n the transects. Here we report on the cor-
Fig. 1. Location of l/te Faroe Is/ands and location
of the five studied mountains in the Faroe Islands:
1: Sornfelli; 2: Mosarøkur; 3: Ørvisfelli; 4: Gráfelli
and 5: Villingardalsfjall.
relation between altitudinal change and life-
forms in the Faroes and, in addition, the ef-
fects of climatic and other environmental pa-
rameters on Raunkiær life-forms.
Material and methods
Study area
In the summers of 1999 and 2000, we sam-
pled the vegetation on five mountains in the
Faroe Islands along transects from a high
point of 856 m a.s.l. down to 150 m a.s.l.
(Fig. 1). Two of the mountains had north-
facing aspects; one faced south; and two had
southwest-facing aspects (Table 2). The
longest transect was 4.0 km, while the short-
est was 1.2 km (Table 2). All the mountains
are grazed by between 34 and 49 sheep/km2
(Thorsteinsson, 2001). The dominant vege-
tation types on the five mountains are
Racomitrium heath and open grassland veg-
etation in the alpine zone (400-856 m a.s.l.);
moist heath vegetation in the low alpine
zone (200-400 m a.s.l.); and moist dwarf
shrub lieath in the temperate zone (up to 200
m a.s.l.) (Fosaa, 2004).
Sampling
A total of 538 meso-plots were sampled on
the five mountains. The vegetation was sam-
pled at 50 m intervals of altitude from 10
xlO m quadrats (macro-plots). ln each
macro-plot, 8 smaller (0.5 x 0.5 m) quadrats
(meso-plots) were randomly placed. The