Dan Chamberlain is Professor of Ecology at the University of Turin. His research is centred on the impacts of environmental change on biodiversity, including climate change, urbanization and agricultural intensification, with a particular focus on alpine birds. Aleksi Lehikoinen is the Senior curator and Coordinator of the Finnish bird monitoring schemes at the Finnish Museum of Natural History, University of Helsinki. His research focusses on birds as indicators of environmental change, birds in changing climates, protected areas and management, and bird migration. Kathy Martin is Professor of Wildlife Ecology at the University of British Columbia. She investigates how alpine birds cope with their extreme and increasingly unreliable environmental conditions. Kathy studies the adaptations, ecology, life history and conservation of alpine songbirds and grouse in the Americas.

• 1. Mountain birds and their habitats Dan Chamberlain, Aleksi Lehikoinen, Davide Scridel and Kathy Martin; 2. Avian adaptations to high mountain habitats: solving the challenges of living in alpine ecosystems Kathy Martin, Devin R. de Zwaan, Davide Scridel and Tomás A. Altamirano; 3. Global bird communities of alpine and nival habitats Devin R. de Zwaan, Arnaud G. Barras, Tomás A. Altamirano, Addisu Asefa, Pranav Gokhale, R. Suresh Kumar, Shaobin Li, Ruey-shing Lin, C. Steven Sevillano-Ríos, Kerry A. Weston and Davide Scridel; 4. Birds of treeline ecotones Dan Chamberlain, Evgeniya Melikhova, Susanne Jähnig and C. Steven Sevillano-Ríos; 5. Population trends of mountain birds in Europe and North America Aleksi Lehikoinen, Åke Lindström, John Calladine, Tommaso Campedelli, William V. DeLuca, Virginia Escandell, Jiří Flousek, Sergi Herrando, Frédéric Jiguet, John Atle Kålås, Romain Lorrilliere, Timothy D. Meehan, Ingar Jostein Øien, Clara Pladevall, Brett K. Sandercock, Thomas Sattler, Benjamin Seaman, Laura Silva, Hans Schmid, Norbert Teufelbauer and Sven Trautmann; 6. Climate change impacts on mountain birds James W. Pearce-Higgins and Kathy Martin; 7. Anthropogenic activities and mountain birds Enrico Caprio, Antonio Rolando, Raphaël Arlettaz and Dan Chamberlain; 8. Modelling large-scale patterns in mountain bird diversity and distributions Mattia Brambilla, Matthew G. Betts, Ute Bradter, Hankyu Kim, Paola Laiolo and Thomas Sattler; 9. The alpine avifauna of tropical mountains Jon Fjeldså, Jesper Sonne and Carsten Rahbek; 10. Priorities for information, research and conservation of birds in high mountains Kathy Martin, Dan Chamberlain and Aleksi Lehikoinen; Bird species index; Subject index.

'In a context of increasing pressure on these ecosystems, as a result of climate change and human activities, a global analysis of knowledge gaps and current and future protection issues was urgent; it is now delivered to us.' B. Posse, Nos Oiseaux