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Understanding taphonomic patterns on skeletal remains, along with associated entomological evidence, remains a critical challenge in forensic and archaeological investigations. This study examines the specific impact of an Alpine environment on a WWI mass grave of 12 Austro-Hungarian soldiers (Cima Cady, Italy). Alongside general poor preservation caused by acidic soil erosion, a distinctive reddish staining affected over 80% of the skeletal elements. This was linked to the invasive root system of Juniperus sp. , a plant species typical of Alpine zones, which had penetrated the grave and bone cavities. Additional unusual deterioration patterns were observed on tarsal elements that had been in contact with leather boots. Entomological evidence included the presence of Pterostichus multipunctatus and puparia of Protophormia terraenovae , known to mainly colonise exposed remains. The combined taphonomic and entomological findings provide important insights into the postmortem history of the remains and the environmental factors influencing their preservation. Collectively, these results support historical records and testimonies of the burial dynamics from over a century ago, and highlight the broader forensic potential of such evidence in reconstructing mass grave scenarios, including the contemporary investigations of human rights violations or war crimes.

Landscapes nearby glaciers are disproportionally affected by climate change, but we lack detailed information on microclimate variations that can modulate the impacts of global warming on proglacial ecosystems and their biodiversity. Here, we use near-subsurface soil temperatures in 175 stations from polar, equatorial and alpine glacier forelands to generate high-resolution temperature reconstructions, assess spatial variability in microclimate change from 2001 to 2020, and estimate whether microclimate heterogeneity might buffer the severity of warming trends. Temporal changes in microclimate are tightly linked to broad-scale conditions, but the rate of local warming shows great spatial heterogeneity, with faster warming nearby glaciers and during the warm season, and an extension of the snow-free season. Still, most of the fine-scale spatial variability of microclimate is one-to-ten times larger than the temporal change experienced during the past 20 years, indicating the potential for microclimate to buffer climate change, possibly allowing organisms to withstand, at least temporarily, the effects of warming. The high-resolution global model of soil temperature and snow cover change in mountain ecosystems developed here shows that areas nearby glaciers are warming faster than other mountain regions, and these effects are particularly rapid in tropical mountains.

To date, the direct effects of complete glacier disappearance on the specialized fauna associated with this habitat have never been investigated in situ. The Trobio glacier, once the largest in the Bergamo Alps (Italy), completely vanished in 2023 due to climate-induced retreat. This study reconstructs Trobio glacier’s evolution from the Little Ice Age to its disappearance and assesses the impact of glacier extinction on two cryophilic endemic terrestrial arthropod species: the ground beetle Nebria tresignore and the springtail Desoria orobica. Historical maps, literature and recent field data were used to trace glacier changes, while biological surveys evaluated species occurrence to be compared with past (last 10 years) records. These data reveal a direct link between the recorded glacier retreat and species elevational shift: Nebria tresignore shifted upslope about 30 m a-1 following glacial retreat. Desoria orobica showed a dramatic population collapse, with average densities dropping from 80 to < 4 individuals per sample since 2020, likely due to the deeply modified glacial environment. These findings highlight the vulnerability of glacier-dependent biodiversity and the urgent need to document glacier extinction and to identify and protect microrefugia for cold-adapted species in rapidly changing alpine environments.

Climate change is affecting species distribution, composition of biological communities, and species traits. Despite the growing body of knowledge on the reaction of species to climate change, the potentially delayed response of species is still severely understudied. In this paper we modelled the time needed by ground‐living invertebrates to effectively react to habitat modification induced by climate change in relation to dispersal abilities. We analyzed the occurrence pattern of alpine ground beetles (carabids) along areas recently freed by retreating glaciers in the central‐eastern Italian Alps, to test how the synergic effects of time since deglaciation and environmental factors may affect the colonisation process. Different times of response to climate change in ground beetles were found. Sites already hosting the land cover type suitable for our study taxon, but ice‐free for less than 100 yr, are mainly colonised by winged carabid beetles (which have high dispersal abilities and are mostly habitat generalists). No, or very few, wingless species (slow colonizers and ecologically specialized) occur within those sites. The overall pattern suggests that within a site, suitable land cover is established prior to colonization, due to a strong joint effect of time since deglaciation and land cover type. Long‐lasting habitat development at the fine scale is likely to result in a lack of specific resources (e.g. food items, or microhabitat), which is likely to contribute to delayed colonisation, which potentially could be tied also to dispersal abilities. Whatever the reason, the existence of a time‐lag often equal to or greater than 100 yr in species colonisation implies caution in predicting species’ occurrence shifts following climate change.

Glacial retreat creates new habitat which is colonized by plants and animals during the process of primary succession. Traditionally, invertebrate succession along the glacier forelands has been spatially and temporally described by predictors, namely species richness, diversity/similarity indices and species traits. In this paper, another approach is used and applied to carabid beetle assemblages in two alpine glacier forelands. It utilizes mean individual biomass (MIB), which is considered by several authors to be a good indicator of habitat successional stages. MIB increased with time since deglaciation and this is related to species turnover along the glacier forelands. Specifically, MIB is able to separate early from late successional stages. The former are characterized by carabid assemblages with low MIB values and species typical of pioneer habitats. Therefore, MIB seems to be a sensitive indicator of carabid beetle successional stages also along the glacier forelands.

The Dolomites (European Alps) are a UNESCO World Heritage Site known to harbor distinctive communities of carabid beetles adapted to high-altitude environments, whose composition is shaped mainly by landform and habitat type. We aimed to assess the conservation priority of carabid beetle communities in the Brenta mountain group (Italy). We used the Index of Natural Value (INV), based on the relative frequencies and abundances of highly specialized Alpine species, as a proxy of the sensitivity to disturbance, and, thus, to the vulnerability of the carabid beetle communities to extinction. We used information on Natura 2000 habitat cover to produce a map for identifying areas of the Brenta Dolomites inhabited by the carabid beetle communities most relevant for conservation. We also report on the main differences in terms of species composition between the investigated communities. We found a positive correlation between vulnerability and altitude. Specifically, the most vulnerable communities were recorded in high-altitude habitat types (limestone cliffs and pavements, calcareous and calcschist screes, and alpine calcareous grasslands). Alkaline fens resulted in having the least vulnerable community, while those in all other habitats (bush and forests) were found to have intermediate levels of vulnerability.

The high altitude mountain slopes of the Dolomites (Italian Alps) are characterized by great habitat and landform heterogeneities. In this paper, we investigated the effect of Nature 2000 habitat and landform types in driving the high altitude ground beetle (Carabidae) distribution in the Western Dolomites (Brenta group, Italy). We studied the carabid assemblages collected in 55 sampling points distributed in four Nature 2000 habitat types and four landform types located between 1860 and 2890 m above sea level (a.s.l.). Twenty-two species, half of them Alpine endemics, were sampled. Species richness and taxonomic distinctness did not show any significant difference among habitat types; conversely, these differences became significant when the landform type was considered. Total activity density and the frequency of brachypterous, endemic and predatory species showed significant differences between both habitat and landform types. Indicator species analysis identified twelve species linked to a specific habitat type and thirteen species linked to a specific landform type. Canonical correspondence analysis showed that altitude and vegetation cover drove the species distribution in each habitat and landform type while the aspect had a weak effect. Our results highlight the need for a geomorphological characterization of the sampling points when high altitude ground-dwelling arthropods are investigated.

Very little is known about the changes of ground beetle assemblages in the last few decades in the Alps, and different responses to climate change of animal populations living above and below the treeline have not been estimated yet. This study focuses on an altitudinal habitat sequence from subalpine spruce forest to alpine grassland in a low disturbance area of the southeastern Dolomites in Italy, the Paneveggio Regional Park. We compared the ground beetle (Carabidae) populations sampled in 1980 in six stands below and above the treeline (1650–2250 m a.s.l.) with those sampled in the same sites almost 30 years later (2008/9). Quantitative data (species richness and abundance) have been compared by means of several diversity indexes and with a new index, the Index of Rank‐abundance Change (IRC). Our work shows that species richness and abundance have changed after almost 30 years as a consequence of local extinctions, uphill increment of abundance and uphill shift of distribution range. The overall species number dropped from 36 to 27, while in the sites above the treeline, species richness and abundance changed more than in the forest sites. Two microtherm characteristic species of the pioneer cushion grass mats, Nebria germari and Trechus dolomitanus, became extinct or showed strong abundance reduction. In Nardetum pastures, several hygrophilic species disappeared, and xerophilic zoophytophagous elements raised their population density. In forest ecosystems, the precipitation reduction caused deep soil texture and watering changes, driving a transformation from Sphagnum‐rich (peaty) to humus‐rich soil, and as a consequence, soil invertebrate biomass strongly increased and thermophilic carabids enriched the species structure. In three decades, Carabid assemblages changed consistently with the hypothesis that climate change is one of the main factors triggering natural environment modifications. Furthermore, the level of human disturbance could enhance the sensitivity of mountain ecosystems to climate change. This study focuses on an altitudinal habitat sequence from subalpine spruce forest to alpine grassland in a low disturbance area of the southeastern Dolomites, the Paneveggio Regional Park.

As glaciers retreat, their forelands represent “natural laboratories” for the study of primary succession. This review describes how certain arthropods conquer pristine ground and develop food webs before the establishment of vascular plants. Based on soil samples, pitfall traps, fallout and sticky traps, gut content studies, and some unpublished data, we compare early arthropod succession on glacial forelands of northern Europe (Iceland, Norway including Svalbard, and Sweden) and of the Alps (Austria, Italy). While macroarthropod predators like ground beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae), harvestmen (Arachnida: Opiliones), and spiders (Arachnida: Araneae) have usually been considered as pioneers, assumed to feed on airborne prey, this review explains a different pattern. Here, we highlight that springtails (Collembola), probably feeding on biofilm made up of algae or cyanobacteria, are super-pioneers, even at high altitudes and under arctic conditions. We also point out that macroarthropod predators can use locally available prey, such as springtails or non-biting midges (Diptera: Chironomidae). Pioneer arthropod communities vary under different biogeographical and climatic conditions. Two pioneer food webs, from northern Europe and the Alps, respectively, differed in structure and function. However, certain genera and orders were common to both. Generalists and specialists live together in a pioneer community. Cold-adapted specialists are threatened by glacier melting.

Carabid beetles and chironomid midges are two dominant cold-adapted taxa, respectively on glacier forefiel terrains and in glacial-stream rivers. Although their sensitivity to high altitude climate warming is well known, no studies compare the species assemblages exhibited in glacial systems. Our study compares diversity and distributional patterns of carabids and chironomids in the foreland of the receding Amola glacier in central-eastern Italian Alps. Carabids were sampled by pitfall traps; chironomids by kick sampling in sites located at the same distance from the glacier as the terrestrial ones. The distance from the glacier front was considered as a proxy for time since deglaciation since these variables are positively correlated. We tested if the distance from the glacier front affects: i) the species richness; ii) taxonomic diversity; and iii) species turnover. Carabid species richness and taxonomic diversity increased positively from recently deglaciated sites (those c. 160 m from the glacier front) to sites deglaciated more than 160yrs ago (those located >1300 m from glacier front). Species distributions along the glacier foreland were characterized by mutually exclusive species. Conversely, no pattern in chironomid species richness and turnover was observed. Interestingly, taxonomic diversity increased significantly: closely related species were found near the glacier front, while the most taxonomically diverse species assemblages were found distant from the glacier front. Increasing glacial retreat differently affect epigeic and aquatic insect taxa: carabids respond faster to glacier retreat than do chironomids, at least in species richness and species turnover patterns.