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Mountain protected areas provide a range of ecosystem services including conserving biodiversity, while often providing recreation and tourism opportunities. Unfortunately, tourists and pack animals used to transport equipment can damage sensitive alpine vegetation particularly when they leave trails. This study assessed the impacts of disturbance from off trail use on alpine vegetation in a popular park in the Andes. The effect of different levels of disturbance as well as abiotic factors on alpine steppe vegetation was assessed using generalized linear models and ordinations in 91 plots (20 m2) in the popular Horcones Valley that is used to access remote areas in Aconcagua Provincial Park in Argentina. Disturbance off trails resulted in declines in the cover of native plants, including the endemic shrub Adesmia aegiceras but increases in the cover of herbs including the non-native Convolvulus arvensis. Increased disturbance was associated with shifts from stress tolerant species to ruderal plants characterized by more acquisitive traits, including shorter plants with greater Specific Leaf Area. The research demonstrates the severity of impacts from off trail trampling including how trampling favours some species with specific traits over others and why it is important to limit off track use in areas of high conservation value. • Low alpine vegetation can be affected by off trail use from visitors and pack animals. • Off trail disturbance resulted in shifts of species dominance. • Ruderal and non-native species with acquisitive traits were favoured by disturbance. • Limiting off trail use is critical to conserve alpine plant biodiversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social media images are a novel source of data to assess how people view and value the environment. Access to these images is often free, the volume and spread of images is expanding rapidly and hence they are an increasingly valuable source of data complementing and expanding on other data. Recently, coding images has been used to assess sociocultural values relating to ecosystem services including those provided by national parks. To further explore the use of social media images, including for remote environments, we analysed the content of images posted to Flickr by people visiting a national park that contains the highest mountain in the southern hemisphere, Mt. Aconcagua, in Argentina, South America. The saliency of aesthetic landscapes, recreation, social relations and fresh-water provisioning was high across the 334 images posted to Flickr by 104 visitors to the Park, but location mattered. Images from visitors in easily accessible day-use areas were significantly more likely to include content that reflects biodiversity-existence, geology, culture and education services, while the content of images from remote areas was more likely to reflect social relations and fresh-water provision services. Comparisons of the content of images from Mt. Aconcagua with other studies in Europe, South America, Asia, Africa and Australia highlight similarities and differences in people's views of the diversity of locations, but also the benefits and limitations of user-generated social media content when assessing environmental and management issues.

Managing protected areas effectively requires information about patterns of visitor use, but these data are often limited. We explore how geotagged photos on Flickr, a popular photo-sharing social-media site, can generate hotspot maps and distribution models of temporal and spatial patterns of use in two mountain-protected areas of high conservation value. In Aconcagua Provincial Park (Argentina), two routes to the summit of Aconcagua were used in summer, but most visitors stayed close to the main road, using formal and informal walking trails and the Visitor Centre, while in winter, there was very limited visitation. In Kosciuszko National Park (Australia), alpine walking trails were popular in summer, but in winter, most visitors stayed in the lower altitude ski resorts and ski trails. Results demonstrate the usefulness of social-media data alone as well as a complement for visitor monitoring, providing spatial and temporal information for site-specific and park-level management of visitors and potential impacts in conservation areas.

Despite the popularity of tourism and recreation in the Andes in South America and the regions conservation value, there is limited research on the ecological impacts of these types of anthropogenic use. Using a systematic quantitative literature review method, we found 47 recreation ecology studies from the Andes, 25 of which used an experimental design. Most of these were from the Southern Andes in Argentina (13 studies) or Chile (eight studies) with only four studies from the Northern Andes. These studies documented a range of impacts on vegetation, birds and mammals; including changes in plant species richness, composition and vegetation cover and the tolerance of wildlife of visitor use. There was little research on the impacts of visitors on soils and aquatic systems and for some ecoregions in the Andes. We identify research priorities across the region that will enhance management strategies to minimise visitor impacts in Andean ecosystems.

There is limited recreation ecology research in South America, especially studies looking at informal trails. Impacts of informal trails formed by hikers and pack animals on vegetation and soils were assessed for the highest protected area in the Southern Hemisphere, Aconcagua Provincial Park. The number of braided trails, their width and depth were surveyed at 30 sites along the main access route to Mt Aconcagua (6962 m a.s.l.). Species composition, richness and cover were also measured on control and trail transects. A total of 3.3 ha of alpine meadows and 13.4 ha of alpine steppe were disturbed by trails. Trails through meadows resulted in greater soil loss, more exposed soil and rock and less vegetation than trails through steppe vegetation. Trampling also affected the composition of meadow and steppe vegetation with declines in sedges, herbs, grasses and shrubs on trails. These results highlight how visitor use can result in substantial cumulative damage to areas of high conservation value in the Andes. With unregulated use of trails and increasing visitation, park agencies need to limit the further spread of informal trails and improve the conservation of plant communities in Aconcagua Provincial Park and other popular parks in the region., (Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)