736 J. R. Ferrer‐Paris et al.


and have narrow thermal niches (Cuesta et al., 2020, 2023). Andean landscapes are being transformed, including via the contraction of puna and paramo and degradation/loss of high Andean wetlands (Cuesta et al., 2019). Monitoring the status and trends of ecosystems is funda-


mental to informing biodiversity conservation and sustain- ing the benefits from nature (Bland et al., 2019). The IUCN Red List of Ecosystems provides a standard protocol for monitoring through a rigorous assessment of the risk of eco- system collapse. Ecosystem collapse is defined as a large transformational change involving loss of biodiversity and/or major degradation and loss of ecosystem function. The risk status of an ecosystem is represented by the as- signed Red List of Ecosystems category of risk that sum- marizes the probability of collapse based on the diagnosis of qualitative and quantitative indicators (Keith et al., 2013). Previous Red List of Ecosystems assessments in the trop-


ical Andes have focused on vegetated ecosystem types in- cluding tropical alpine vegetation, but have not considered glacial ecosystems (Oliveira-Miranda et al., 2010; Etter et al., 2018). Globally there are few examples of such assessments of cryogenic ecosystems, and those that exist are primarily focused on seasonal snow (Williams et al., 2015; Kontula & Raunio, 2019), freeze–thaw glacial lakes or permanent snowfields (Murray et al., 2020).


Here we contribute to filling this gap by presenting a pre-


cursory example of a global assessment of all tropical glacier ecosystems. We focus on the glaciers of the Cordillera de Mérida in Venezuela, which have a documented history of decline in number and extent (Ramírez et al., 2020). We use information from local, regional and global studies to apply the Red List of Ecosystems criteria, and we provide a com- prehensive ecosystem description supported by knowledge from related ecosystem types and information from local studies, a diagnosis of ecosystem functioning, threats and state of collapse and the ecosystem risk status based on spa- tial and functional symptoms of collapse.


Study area


The tropical glacier ecosystemof theCordillera deMérida is a distinct ecosystem type that formerly occupied several peaks above 4,600 m in Sierra Nevada National Park in Venezuela (Fig. 1; Braun & Bezada, 2013; Ramírez et al., 2020). Following the IUCN Global Ecosystem Typology, all


tropical glacier ecosystems belong to the Ecosystem Functional Group T6.1 Ice sheets, glaciers and perennial snowfields in the Cryogenic functional biome (T6; Keith et al., 2022). Tropical glaciers share key features with other glaciers, such as the icy substrate, atmospheric deposition of


FIG. 1 The study area in the Cordillera de Mérida, Venezuela. This assessment focuses on three glaciated peaks: Bolívar, La Concha and Humboldt. These peaks and other historically glaciated areas are encompassed in a single 10 × 10 km cell (highlighted square, area of occupancy = 1). The isolated Mucuñuque Peak at 4,609 m lost its ice before 1930.


Oryx, 2024, 58(6), 735–745 © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605323001771


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