Generations of plant scientists have been fascinated by alpine plant life - with the exposure of organisms to dramatic climatic gradients over a very short distance. This comprehensive text treats a wide range of topics: alpine climate and soils, plant distribution and the treeline phenomenon, physiological ecology of water-, nutritional- and carbon relations of alpine plants, plant stress and plant development, biomass production, and aspects of human impacts on alpine vegetation. Geographically the book covers all parts of the world including the tropics.This second edition of Alpine Plant Life gives new references, new diagrams, and extensively revised chapters.

Plant ecology at high elevations

The alpine life zone
Alpine climate
The climate plants experience
Life under snow: protection and limitation
Alpine soils
Alpine treelines
Climatic stress
Water relations
Mineral nutrition
Uptake and loss of carbon
Carbon investments
Growth dynamics and phenology
Cell division and tissue formation
Plant biomass production
Plant reproduction
Global change at high elevation
References (with chapter annotation)
Index
Color Plates.