The menu at the side shows plants by family and by location. If you have corrections or pictures in a similar locality you can share please reply to one of my posts, for pictures I will e-mail you back and try and load them to build up a picture of what is/was the biodiversity in the swiss meadows.

The post thumbnails focus on the specific plant/flower, the main pictures are taken at location with the all important surrounding vegetation to understand the context, niche and for to capture this magnificent disappearing landscape for posterity, any insect or bird life is a great bonus and helps understand the delicate balances and inter-dependencies.

Biodiversity of a field – Biodiversité d’un champ

In the research of Climate Change in the European Alps (see 1. Links below), the Alps are identified as the “water tower” of Europe, source to three principal rivers – the Rhine, Rhone, and the Po.  They are also one of the richest biodiversity hotspots in Europe with over 30,000 animals and 13,000 plant species.

The popular and burgeoning success of Crans-Montana with skiing, ski du font and mountain biking have already driven the farmers away from the meadows servicing the growing visitors, leaving the deep blue gentians and pasture flowers smothered by Juniper as it spreads, ungrazed across the once meadow lands higher up in the ski slopes

The value of farm land for development to support the tourists is also having its impact now stretching down the valley the land has been built on, or land as shown here is designated for development after generations of summer pasturing and tinkling of cow bells.

Endangered – en danger

The Diversity in Grass article highlights the recent land use changes have reduced grassland diversity. Within grassland parcels, plant species diversity was higher on unfertilized mown grasslands such as the ones in this album, than on fertilized or grazed ones.

It reports that most individual plants were affected by herbivores and fungal leaf pathogens, reflecting that parcels harboured a great diversity of herbivores and pathogens. However, as plant damage by herbivores and pathogens was not severe, conserving these biological interactions among plants is hardly compromising agricultural goals.

A genetic difference is found in an important fodder grass Poa alpina between mown and grazed sites, suggesting adaptation. Per-village genetic diversity of Poa alpina was greater in villages with higher land use diversity, analogous to the higher plant species diversity there.

The finding was that the overall, landscape diversity and biodiversity within grassland parcels are currently declining. This decline contradicts the intention of Swiss law and international agreements, financial incentives need to be re-allocated and should focus on promoting high biodiversity at the local and the landscape level. At the same time, this will benefit landscape attractiveness for tourists and help preserve a precious cultural heritage in the Swiss Alps