Conclusions

In the Alpine, water rarely becomes a primary limiting resource, because of the increased precipitation/evapotranspiration ratio and plant adaptation.
Soils are the key: only on very shallow soils there is the risk of periodic water shortage.
Habitats prone to periodic water shortage are inhabited by specialists such as desiccation tolerant plants (most cryptogams) or by succulents.
One needs to distinguish between surface drought-induced nutrient shortage (which can occur) and true tissue water shortage in plants (which rarely occurs because of deep roots).

Acknowledgements

(Institute of Botany, Ecology - University of Basel)

Concept and content, photographs

(Institute of Zoology, Evolution - University of Basel)

Technical realisation, photographs

cuticula: The hydrophobic (water repellent) outermost layer of the epidermis (the outermost plant cell layer) of above ground plant tissue

festucoid: A leaf shaped like those in many members of the grass genus Festuca, i.e. narrow and furrowed

lysimeter: A container with soil and vegetation originally used to study the loss of dissolved mineral nutrients by deep seepage (hence the name). Commonly used today to determine evapotranspiration by repeated weighing

mycorrhiza: The "root-fungus", a symbiotic link between fungal mycelium and plant roots