Peak Health home > Landscapes > Ecological Processes & Stressors

Landscapes Under Stress

While Mt. Tam’s plants and animals live in protected open spaces, global climate change, pollution, human use impacts, altered fire regimes, invasive plants and animals, habitat fragmentation, and plant diseases all threaten the health of the mountain’s natural resources.

These ecological stressors can directly result in habitat loss and degradation and negatively affect the size, range, and reproductive capacity of plants and animals. Interactions among these stressors (e.g., between climate change and fire frequency, or fire and plant diseases) may further compound their effects and make managing for them much more challenging.

A summary of some of the key stressors affecting Mt. Tam may be found through the links above.