Soil genesis in recently deglaciated areas

Climate change has huge impacts on mountain ecosystems. One visible effect is glacier retreat, which has continued with only few interruptions since the end of the Little Ice Age (LIA), around the mid-nineteenth century. The released surfaces in the proglacial areas (glacier forefields) offer the opportunity to observe the development of soil properties and ecosystem dynamics: habitats characterized by different ages coexist over short distances, reducing the effect of other geographical and climatic factors. It is thus possible to observe how the time factor influences pedogenic and ecosystem processes, obtaining chronosequences.