This study employs Optically Stimulated Luminescence Profiling and Dating (OSL-PD) to address the challenge of synchronizing social changes with natural events, a significant limitation in existing studies on the resilience and vulnerability of pre-modern societies to ecological stress. By uncovering the construction dates of terrace farming systems in the northern Apennines region, the research reveals a distinct temporal framework, indicating that the establishment of agricultural terraces predominantly occurred during the 11th to 13th centuries CE. This crucial time frame aligns directly with complex socio-economic factors, including the encastellation process, alongside the climatic shifts characterising the Medieval Climate Anomaly. Isotopic fractionation of the Total Organic Carbon confirms that different agricultural choices were made in coincidence with the establishment of terrace farming. The resultant historical rural landscape underwent continuous enhancements in the centuries that followed. Notably, the main phases of (re)construction correspond to the coldest periods of the Little Ice Age, offering new insights into the historical interactions between human activities and the environment during the Late Holocene in the area.

We present the main outcomes of the IdroStelvio project, continuous (2010-present) monitoring initiative developed through cooperation between the Stelvio National Park Authority, the University of Milano, and Politecnico di Milano. The project established and maintained a hydrometric network monitoring 11 high-altitude streams predominantly fed by snow and ice meltwater. The monitoring system, covering approximately 32% of the park's area, and more than 90% of glacierized catchments therein, provides a comprehensive view of the hydrological dynamics of this sensitive Alpine region. IdroStelvio represents one of the most extensive and long-standing case studies of hydrological monitoring in glacierized environments, both in Italy and internationally. Beyond reporting the structure, evolution, and scientific outputs of the network, this paper distills the operational experience gained into a set of practical guidelines for the monitoring of snow-ice fed mountain streams. These guidelines address site selection, sensor configuration, maintenance protocols, and data validation strategies, aiming to support the replicability of similar systems in other high-altitude regions. The collected data are valuable for glacio-hydrological modeling, scenario analysis, and water resource planning under climate change. The IdroStelvio experience may serve as a reference framework for future monitoring initiatives in sensitive alpine environments.

The worldwide retreat of glaciers is causing a faster than ever increase in ice-free areas that are leading to the emergence of new ecosystems. Understanding the dynamics of these environments is critical to predicting the consequences of climate change on mountains and at high latitudes. Climatic differences between regions of the world could modulate the emergence of biodiversity and functionality after glacier retreat, yet global tests of this hypothesis are lacking. Nematodes are the most abundant soil animals, with keystone roles in ecosystem functioning, but the lack of global-scale studies limits our understanding of how the taxonomic and functional diversity of nematodes changes during the colonization of proglacial landscapes. We used environmental DNA metabarcoding to characterize nematode communities of 48 glacier forelands from five continents. We assessed how different facets of biodiversity change with the age of deglaciated terrains and tested the hypothesis that colonization patterns are different across forelands with different climatic conditions. Nematodes colonized ice-free areas almost immediately. Both taxonomic and functional richness quickly increased over time, but the increase in nematode diversity was modulated by climate, so that colonization started earlier in forelands with mild summer temperatures. Colder forelands initially hosted poor communities, but the colonization rate then accelerated, eventually leveling biodiversity differences between climatic regimes in the long term. Immediately after glacier retreat, communities were dominated by colonizer taxa with short generation time and r-ecological strategy but community composition shifted through time, with increased frequency of more persister taxa with K-ecological strategy. These changes mostly occurred through the addition of new traits instead of their replacement during succession. The effects of local climate on nematode colonization led to heterogeneous but predictable patterns around the world that likely affect soil communities and overall ecosystem development.

The global retreat of glaciers is dramatically altering mountain and high-latitude landscapes, with new ecosystems developing from apparently barren substrates1-4. The study of these emerging ecosystems is critical to understanding how climate change interacts with microhabitat and biotic communities and determines the future of ice-free terrains1,5. Here, using a comprehensive characterization of ecosystems (soil properties, microclimate, productivity and biodiversity by environmental DNA metabarcoding6) across 46 proglacial landscapes worldwide, we found that all the environmental properties change with time since glaciers retreated, and that temperature modulates the accumulation of soil nutrients. The richness of bacteria, fungi, plants and animals increases with time since deglaciation, but their temporal patterns differ. Microorganisms colonized most rapidly in the first decades after glacier retreat, whereas most macroorganisms took longer. Increased habitat suitability, growing complexity of biotic interactions and temporal colonization all contribute to the increase in biodiversity over time. These processes also modify community composition for all the groups of organisms. Plant communities show positive links with all other biodiversity components and have a key role in ecosystem development. These unifying patterns provide new insights into the early dynamics of deglaciated terrains and highlight the need for integrated surveillance of their multiple environmental properties5.

The mechanisms underlying plant succession remain highly debated. Due to the local scope of most studies, we lack a global quantification of the relative importance of species addition ‘versus’ replacement. We assessed the role of these processes in the variation (β-diversity) of plant communities colonizing the forelands of 46 retreating glaciers worldwide, using both environmental DNA and traditional surveys. Our findings indicate that addition and replacement concur in determining community changes in deglaciated sites, but their relative importance varied over time. Taxa addition dominated immediately after glacier retreat, as expected in harsh environments, while replacement became more important for late-successional communities. These changes were aligned with total β-diversity changes, which were more pronounced between early-successional communities than between late-successional communities (>50 yr since glacier retreat). Despite the complexity of community assembly during plant succession, the observed global pattern suggests a generalized shift from the dominance of facilitation and/or stochastic processes in early-successional communities to a predominance of competition later on.

Summary The development of terrestrial ecosystems depends greatly on plant mutualists such as mycorrhizal fungi. The global retreat of glaciers exposes nutrient‐poor substrates in extreme environments and provides a unique opportunity to study early successions of mycorrhizal fungi by assessing their dynamics and drivers. We combined environmental DNA metabarcoding and measurements of local conditions to assess the succession of mycorrhizal communities during soil development in 46 glacier forelands around the globe, testing whether dynamics and drivers differ between mycorrhizal types. Mycorrhizal fungi colonized deglaciated areas very quickly (< 10 yr), with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi tending to become more diverse through time compared to ectomycorrhizal fungi. Both alpha‐ and beta‐diversity of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi were significantly related to time since glacier retreat and plant communities, while microclimate and primary productivity were more important for ectomycorrhizal fungi. The richness and composition of mycorrhizal communities were also significantly explained by soil chemistry, highlighting the importance of microhabitat for community dynamics. The acceleration of ice melt and the modifications of microclimate forecasted by climate change scenarios are expected to impact the diversity of mycorrhizal partners. These changes could alter the interactions underlying biotic colonization and belowground–aboveground linkages, with multifaceted impacts on soil development and associated ecological processes.

During the Assyrian rule over Northern Mesopotamia (present-day northern Iraq), complex systems of canals were built to increase the surface of cultivable land and improve the movement of people and goods across the irrigated waterscape of the hinterland of Nineveh and other major urban centres, with the aim of granting socio-economic prosperity to the empire. Nevertheless, supra-regional political instability eventually led to the rapid downfall of the Assyrian state during the late seventh century BCE, causing the swift abandonment of the canal systems. In this study, we examine the post-abandonment formation processes of the natural and anthropogenic infillings of three portions of King Sennacherib’s Khinis canal system (705–681 BCE, northwestern Kurdistan Region of Iraq) through means of archaeological, sedimentological and micromorphological analyses. We identify water lain sediments, desiccation features, colluvial gravel intake and pastoral occupation layers, anchoring the deposit to radiometric dating and contextualising it against the known regional climatic history. The interpretation of pedostratigraphic evidence highlights subsequent phases of use, abandonment, and repurposing of the canals, reflecting shifts in land-use from agriculture to pastoralism and dynamic adaptation and resilience of the local ancient communities in response to Late-Holocene climate changes and geopolitical events.

Historic agricultural practices have played a dominant role in shaping landscapes, creating a heritage which must be understood and conserved from the perspective of sustainable development. Agroforestry (i.e., the practice of combining trees with agriculture or livestock) has existed since ancient times in European countries, and it has been recognised as one of the most resilient and multifunctional cultural landscapes, providing a wide range of economic, sociocultural, and environmental benefits. This research explores aspects of the history, physical characteristics, decline, and current state of conservation of historic agroforestry systems on the Northern Apennines in Italy, using an interdisciplinary approach combining archival sources, landscape archaeology, dendrochronology, and GIS analysis. Furthermore, through computer-based modelling, this research aims to evaluate how the abandonment of this historic rural land-use strategy impacted slope geomorphic processes over the long term. The importance of environmental values attached to traditional rural landscapes has received much attention even beyond the heritage sector, justifying the definition of transdisciplinary approaches necessary to ensure the holistic management of landscapes. Through the integration of the Unit Stream Power-Based Erosion Deposition (USPED) equation with landscape archaeological data, the paper shows how restoring the historic agroforestry landscape could significantly mitigate soil mass movements in the area. Thus, the interdisciplinary workflow proposed in this study enables a deep understanding of both the historical evolution of agroforestry systems and its resulting effects for cumulative soil erosion and deposition in the face of climate change.

Ice-free areas are increasing worldwide due to the dramatic glacier shrinkage and are undergoing rapid colonization by multiple lifeforms, thus representing key environments to study ecosystem development. Soils have a complex vertical structure. However, we know little about how microbial and animal communities differ across soil depths and development stages during the colonization of deglaciated terrains, how these differences evolve through time, and whether patterns are consistent among different taxonomic groups. Here, we used environmental DNA metabarcoding to describe how community diversity and composition of six groups (Eukaryota, Bacteria, Mycota, Collembola, Insecta, Oligochaeta) differ between surface (0-5 cm) and relatively deep (7.5-20 cm) soils at different stages of development across five Alpine glaciers. Taxonomic diversity increased with time since glacier retreat and with soil evolution; the pattern was consistent across different groups and soil depths. For Eukaryota, and particularly Mycota, alpha-diversity was generally the highest in soils close to the surface. Time since glacier retreat was a more important driver of community composition compared to soil depth; for nearly all the taxa, differences in community composition between surface and deep soils decreased with time since glacier retreat, suggesting that the development of soil and/or of vegetation tends to homogenize the first 20 cm of soil through time. Within both Bacteria and Mycota, several molecular operational taxonomic units were significant indicators of specific depths and/or soil development stages, confirming the strong functional variation of microbial communities through time and depth. The complexity of community patterns highlights the importance of integrating information from multiple taxonomic groups to unravel community variation in response to ongoing global changes.

We applied a multi-taxa approach integrating the co-occurrence of plants, ground beetles, spiders and springtails with soil parameters (temperatures and chemical characteristics) in order to describe the primary succession along two glacier forelands in the Maritime Alps (Italy), a hotspot of Mediterranean biodiversity. We compared these successions to those from Central Alps: Maritime glacier forelands markedly differ for their higher values of species richness and species turnover. Contrary to our expectation, Maritime glacier forelands follow a ‘replacement change model’, like continental succession of Inner Alps and differently from other peripheral successions. We propose that the temperatures along these Mediterranean glacier forelands are warmer than those along other Alpine glacier forelands, which promote the faster species turnover. Furthermore, we found that early and mid successional stages of the investigated glaciers are richer in cold-adapted and endemic species than the later ones: we confirmed that the ‘replacement change’ model disadvantages pioneer, cold-adapted species. Given the overall correspondence among cold-adapted and endemic species, the most threatened in this climate phase, our results raise new concerns about the extinction risk of these species. We also describe supraglacial habitat of Maritime glaciers demonstrating that supraglacial debris represents an environment decoupled from the regional climate and may have an important role as refugium for coldadapted and hygrophilous plant and animal species, whose survival can be threatened by climate change and by a rapid ecological succession in the adjacent forelands.

3 Khedim Norine 1,2, Cécillon Lauric 3,4, Poulenard Jérôme 1, Barré Pierre 4, Baudin François 5, Marta 4 Silvio 6, Rabatel Antoine 7, Dentant Cédric 13, Cauvy-Fraunié Sophie 9, Anthelme Fabien 12, Gielly 5 Ludovic 2, Ambrosini Roberto 6, Franzetti Andrea 8, Azzoni Roberto Sergio 6, Caccianniga Marco 6 Stefano 14, Compostella Chiara 15, Clague John 16, Tielidze Levan 10,11, Messager Erwan 1, Choler 7 Philippe 2, Ficetola Francesco 2,6

Centipedes (Chilopoda) are widespread and abundant predators in several kind of habitats, from forests to caves. Very few quantitative data are currently available for alpine habitats, specifically those located at high-altitudes. In this paper, we analysed data on centipedes collected by pitfall traps on different high-altitude landforms of the Central-Eastern Italian Alps, specifically on rock glaciers, debris-covered glaciers, glacier forelands, stable slopes, and scree slopes. We investigated the species richness and abundance (activity density) of individuals in each landform and the relationships between species occurrence and environmental variables in the investigated landforms. The obtained results highlighted non-significant differences in species richness between the landforms, but significant differences in individual abundance and species distribution. Soil organic matter, soil gravel percentage and altitude resulted the main variables affecting the species distribution; a clear preference for landforms located near the treeline was highlighted. Lithobius lucifugus resulted the dominant and most common species as well as the only species able to colonise debris-covered glaciers.

In this study, the early ecological succession patterns of Forni Glacier (Ortles-Cevedale group, Italian Alps) forefield along an 18-year long chronosequence (with a temporal resolution of 1 year) has been reported. Bacterial and fungal community structures were inferred by high-throughput sequencing of 16S rRNA gene and ITS, respectively. In addition, the occurrence of both herbaceous and arboreous plants was also recorded at each plot. A significant decrease of alpha-diversity in more recently deglaciated areas was observed for both bacteria and plants. Time since deglaciation and pH affected the structure of both fungal and bacterial communities. Pioneer plants could be a major source of colonization for both bacterial and fungal communities. Consistently, some of the most abundant bacterial taxa and some of those significantly varying with pH along the chronosequence (Polaromonas, Granulicella, Thiobacillus, Acidiferrobacter) are known to be actively involved in rock-weathering processes due to their chemolithotrophic metabolism, thus suggesting that the early phase of the chronosequence could be mainly shaped by the biologically controlled bioavailability of metals and inorganic compounds. Fungal communities were dominated by ascomycetous filamentous fungi and basidiomycetous yeasts. Their role as cold-adapted organic matter decomposers, due to their heterotrophic metabolism, was suggested.

Since the last glacial maximum, soil formation related to ice‐cover shrinkage has been one major sink of carbon accumulating as soil organic matter (SOM), a phenomenon accelerated by the ongoing global warming. In recently deglacierized forelands, processes of SOM accumulation, including those that control carbon and nitrogen sequestration rates and biogeochemical stability of newly sequestered carbon, remain poorly understood. Here, we investigate the build‐up of SOM during the initial stages (up to 410 years) of topsoil development in 10 glacier forelands distributed on four continents. We test whether the net accumulation of SOM on glacier forelands (i) depends on the time since deglacierization and local climatic conditions (temperature and precipitation); (ii) is accompanied by a decrease in its stability and (iii) is mostly due to an increasing contribution of organic matter from plant origin. We measured total SOM concentration (carbon, nitrogen), its relative hydrogen/oxygen enrichment, stable isotopic ( 13 C, 15 N) and carbon functional groups (C‐H, C=O, C=C) compositions, and its distribution in carbon pools of different thermal stability. We show that SOM content increases with time and is faster on forelands experiencing warmer climates. The build‐up of SOM pools shows consistent trends across the studied soil chronosequences. During the first decades of soil development, the low amount of SOM is dominated by a thermally stable carbon pool with a small and highly thermolabile pool. The stability of SOM decreases with soil age at all sites, indicating that SOM storage is dominated by the accumulation of labile SOM during the first centuries of soil development, and suggesting plant carbon inputs to soil (SOM depleted in nitrogen, enriched in hydrogen and in aromatic carbon). Our findings highlight the potential vulnerability of SOM stocks from proglacial areas to decomposition and suggest that their durability largely depends on the relative contribution of carbon inputs from plants.

Plant science has been more and more utilized in forensic investigation, although its full potential is still to be reached. Plant macroremains are a powerful tool to link a body or other evidence back to a primary crime scene as they can provide detailed information about its previous ecological and geographic location. However, plant macroremains are often poorly preserved and difficult to identify, as diagnostic elements are seldom present within the assemblage occurring on the scene. Plant fragments most likely to be found are those exposed to the environment and resistant to degradation. The bark of woody plants meets these requirements but the possibility of its identification at species level from small fragments is not known. Starting from a real homicide case, where bark splinters were found on the victim, we aimed to assess the forensic potential of bark identification from small fragments like those likely to occur on a crime scene. Two identification keys were prepared for 16 common lowland tree species from Northern Italy; one key used all the available anatomical traits, the second only those from the outer bark. The second key was not able to discriminate some couples of species unambiguously, but could identify the bark fragments of the homicide as Robinia pseudoacacia, as confirmed from direct comparison with a reference sample. Bark fragments deserve to be included into the macroremains to be analyzed during an investigation, but small samples could easily lack diagnostic traits, and the building of a reference collection should be encouraged.

In the Northern Apennines the effects of the Little Ice Age (LIA) on the mountain landscape are poorly known. A pedosedimentary sequence on the northern slope of Mt. Cusna (Tuscan-Aemilian Apennines) and its geomorphological setting were investigated in order to assess the influence of the LIA on the soils and the geomorphological processes. The upper portion of the described sequence could be interpreted as colluvial deposits burying an old paleosurface. The LIA climatic effects acted on the sequence in two distinct phases: in a first moment, partial denudation of the surfaces allowed direct daily and seasonal freeze-thaw cycles (i.e. frost action) to produce ice-related relict microscopic pedofeatures in the soil horizons constituting the paleosurface, and absent on modern surfaces. Afterwards, a slope instability phase, possibly caused by the change to wetter conditions, promoted the widespread colluvial deposits, which were later partially reworked by frost in solifluction lobes. The triggering of these events seems to be influenced by the presence of pastoral communities, too: charcoals found on the paleosurface point to the use of fire events for clearance practices and, possibly, later pasture exploitation of the surfaces. In this light, the environmental history recorded by the Mt. Cusna pedosedimentary sequence highlights how LIA was fundamental in shaping the modern landscape of the N Apennines and suggests a complex relationship between climate and human forcing on mountain environments.

We present and compare 11 years of snow data (snow depth and snow water equivalent, SWE) measured by an automatic weather station (AWS) and corroborated by data from field campaigns on the Forni Glacier in Italy. The aim of the analysis is to estimate the SWE of new snowfall and the annual SWE peak based on the average density of the new snow at the site (corresponding to the snowfall during the standard observation period of 24 h) and automated snow depth measurements. The results indicate that the daily SR50 sonic ranger measurements and the available snow pit data can be used to estimate the mean new snow density value at the site, with an error of ±6 kg m−3. Once the new snow density is known, the sonic ranger makes it possible to derive SWE values with an RMSE of 45 mm water equivalent (if compared with snow pillow measurements), which turns out to be about 8 % of the total SWE yearly average. Therefore, the methodology we present is interesting for remote locations such as glaciers or high alpine regions, as it makes it possible to estimate the total SWE using a relatively inexpensive, low-power, low-maintenance, and reliable instrument such as the sonic ranger.

ABSTRACT Snow can be considered an independent ecosystem that hosts active microbial communities. Snow microbial communities have been extensively investigated in the Arctic and in the Antarctica, but rarely in mid-latitude mountain areas. In this study, we investigated the bacterial communities of snow collected in four glacierized areas (Alps, Eastern Anatolia, Karakoram and Himalaya) by high-throughput DNA sequencing. We also investigated the origin of the air masses that produced the sampled snowfalls by reconstructing back-trajectories. A standardized approach was applied to all the analyses in order to ease comparison among different communities and geographical areas. The bacterial communities hosted from 25 to 211 Operational Taxonomic Units (OTUs), and their structure differed significantly between geographical areas. This suggests that snow bacterial communities may largely derive from ‘local’ air bacteria, maybe by deposition of airborne particulate of local origin that occurs during snowfall. However, some evidences suggest that a contribution of bacteria collected during air mass uplift to snow communities cannot be excluded, particularly when the air mass that originated the snow event is particularly rich in dust.