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Aims Understanding fine‐grain diversity patterns across large spatial extents is fundamental for macroecological research and biodiversity conservation. Using the GrassPlot database, we provide benchmarks of fine‐grain richness values of Palaearctic open habitats for vascular plants, bryophytes, lichens and complete vegetation (i.e., the sum of the former three groups). Location Palaearctic biogeographic realm. Methods We used 126,524 plots of eight standard grain sizes from the GrassPlot database: 0.0001, 0.001, 0.01, 0.1, 1, 10, 100 and 1,000 m2 and calculated the mean richness and standard deviations, as well as maximum, minimum, median, and first and third quartiles for each combination of grain size, taxonomic group, biome, region, vegetation type and phytosociological class. Results Patterns of plant diversity in vegetation types and biomes differ across grain sizes and taxonomic groups. Overall, secondary (mostly semi‐natural) grasslands and natural grasslands are the richest vegetation type. The open‐access file ”GrassPlot Diversity Benchmarks” and the web tool “GrassPlot Diversity Explorer” are now available online (https://edgg.org/databases/GrasslandDiversityExplorer) and provide more insights into species richness patterns in the Palaearctic open habitats. Conclusions The GrassPlot Diversity Benchmarks provide high‐quality data on species richness in open habitat types across the Palaearctic. These benchmark data can be used in vegetation ecology, macroecology, biodiversity conservation and data quality checking. While the amount of data in the underlying GrassPlot database and their spatial coverage are smaller than in other extensive vegetation‐plot databases, species recordings in GrassPlot are on average more complete, making it a valuable complementary data source in macroecology.

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Abstract. Fluctuations in wetland hydrology create an interplay between aerobic and anaerobic conditions, controlling vegetation composition and microbial community structure and activity in wetland soils. In this study, we investigated the vegetation composition and microbial community structural and functional changes along a wetland hydrological gradient. Two different vegetation communities were distinguished along the hydrological gradient; Caricetum gracilis at the wet depression and Arrhenatheretum elatioris at the drier upper site. Microbial community structural changes were studied by a combined in situ 13 CO 2 pulse labeling and phospholipid fatty acid (PLFA) based stable isotope probing approach, which identifies the microbial groups actively involved in assimilation of newly photosynthesized, root-derived C in the rhizosphere soils. Gram negative bacterial communities were relatively more abundant in the surface soils of the drier upper site than in the surface soils of the wetter lower site, while the lower site and the deeper soil layers were relatively more inhabited by gram positive bacterial communities. Despite their large abundance, the metabolically active proportion of gram positive bacterial and actinomycetes communities was much smaller at both sites, compared to that of the gram negative bacterial and fungal communities. This suggests much slower assimilation of rootderived C by gram positive and actinomycetes communities than by gram negative bacteria and fungi at both sites. Ground water depth showed a significant effect on the relative abundance of several microbial communities. Relative abundance of gram negative bacteria significantly decreased with increasing ground water depth while the relative abundance of gram positive bacteria and actinomycetes at the surface layer increased with increasing ground water depth.

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