ECOMONT aims at investigating land-use changes in European Terrestrial Mountain Ecosystems in the context of the EU-framework IV. As a contribution to the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Initiative TERI, ECOMONT aims at a high degree of integration: - to investigate which changes in the canopy structure occur due to land-use changes in agricultural and forestal Alpine ecosystems along a South/North research-transect across the Eastern Alps and how these changes affect the exchange process with the atmosphere; - to clear up how the changes in canopy structure are connected with species composition and performance, as well as with species composition and interaction; - to understand the influence of land-use changes on soil organic matter (SOM) status and turnover, on biogeochemical (CO2, N) and hydrological processes and the lower layers of the athmospere; - to extend this understanding to the landscape level by means of multimedia modelling activities; - to compare the results from the Alps with those of other European mountains (Spanish Pyrenees, Scottish Highland). Home page:HTTP://Info.UIBL.AC.AT/ECOMONT.