Larch pastures are use-stabilized features of alpine cultural landscapes, which are characterized by a two-layer structure made of a loose screen of European larch (Larix decidua) with pastures underneath. As a product of rural alpine farming, larch pastures are widespread in the traditional use systems on both siliceous and carbonate subsoils in the high montane-subalpine altitudinal zone of the Alps (cf. Mayer 1974; 31f.). The combination of geology and cultivation shows a remarkable floristic diversity, especially in the case of formations over carbonate substrates. Rationalizations within alpine farming since the decades after the Second World War - and again accelerating within the past 20 years - promote dynamic changes within the vegetation composition of many larch pastures. The paper reconstructs the vegetation dynamics on larch pastures on carbonate under the influence of decline in use and abandonment using examples in Totes Gebirge, Dachstein massif and Osterhorn group. Via the tabular comparison of phytosociological vegetation recordings from eleven alpine pastures that are currently managed at various levels of intensity or were abandoned at different times, the directions and stages of dynamics are traced and the development of the number of species is examined.
