In India's Western Himalayas, changes in altitude are so dramatic and steep that alluvial grasslands, subtropical forests, conifers and alpine meadows lie stacked almost on top of each other, producing a spectacular range of vegetation. Now, the myriad plants that inhabit these mountains are migrating upwards because of climate change-and some are in danger of being lost before anyone has even recorded their existence. "Indian scientists have not documented many of the species in the Western Himalayas, so one does not know what species existed in the first place, and where they have shifted to, " says Vaneet Jishtu, a botanist at the Himalayan Forest Research Institute in Shimla in the north Indian state ofHimachal Pradesh. Jishtu and his team are midway through a five-year project to catalogue the upward migration.
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