Ecology and distribution of Tephroseris longifolia subsp. moravica in relation to environmental variation at a micro-scale

Abstract

Tephroseris longifolia subsp. moravica is an endemic endangered taxon of European importance. Within the nine recently known populations it occurs in very specific site conditions of ecotone habitats. In our contribution, we try to quantify its realized niche with regard to the measured components of its biotic and abiotic environment. The main aim was to assess the importance of spatial environmental variation on taxon occurrence and performance and to relate the obtained ecological information to data on taxon abundance and demography. Possible reasons of taxon rarity are discussed, too. Comparison of plot pairs indicated that plots containing the taxon had deeper soil and higher soil Na and Mg contents than plots without it. They also contained higher number of species, especially forbs. Several soil parameters were positively correlated with taxon size and density while light parameters played minor role. Negative correlations between cover of vascular plants, especially grasses and taxon size and density suggest its reduced competitive ability. Vascular plant-based ecological indicator values were set for light (6), temperature (5), continentality (4), moisture (5), soil reaction (7) and nutrients (5). The studied sites differed in topography, soil characteristics (pH, soil Na, K, Ca, P and NH4) and cover of herb litter. Size of taxon populations was negatively related to their finite rate of increase which varied between 1.25 and 2.04 and was most sensitive to demographic parameters related to growth. We conclude, that the studied taxon is not strictly stenotopic as the ranges of several environmental variables were rather wide. We suppose, that the narrow limits of recent taxon occurrence are consequences of its low competitive ability and demographic processes related to germination and seedling establishment. The differing requirements of its ontogenetic stages (seedlings and generative individuals) may define the final limits of its small-scale distribution.

Phytosociological affiliation of Annex II species Tephroseris longifolia subsp. moravica in comparison with two related Tephroseris species with overlapping distribution

“…In spite of narrow range of TLM recent distribution, it hardly can be considered as strictly stenotopic. Based on our measurements (Janišová et al 2012), the ranges of several environmental variables in plots inhabited by TLM were rather wide. Also the cultivation experiments supported the idea, that TLM does not require specific habitat conditions to survive.…”

“…TC occurs predominantly on wet peaty meadows, forest wettlands, banks of brooks, alluvial plains on acid soils (Hegi 1929;Tutin 1976;Slavík et Štěpánková 2004). TLM inhabits ecotone habitats, forest edges, bushy hillsides, light forest clearings or sometime on mesophillous meadows on deeper neutral or lightly acid soils (Slavík et Štěpánková 2004;Janišová et al 2012). The light conditions are dependent on the geographic location and also different altitudes but mainly by the vegetation in the surrounding.…”

“…The Ellenberg numbers (Ellenberg et al 1991), as widely used indicator values in Central Europe, were applied in our study to express the habitat conditions. According to Diekmann (1995), Ewald (2009) and Janišová et al (2012), estimation of ecological indicator values based on only bryophytes showed less close relationships to the measured variables than vascular plantbased EIV. Following this study, we decided to use the estimation of vascular plant-based EIV calculated from average EIV of co-occurring vascular plant species.…”

“…moravica. The morphological differences of TLM from the nominal subspecies and its ecological requirements were discussed by Holub (1979Holub ( , 1982, Kochjarová (1995Kochjarová ( , 1997Kochjarová ( , 1998a, Janišová et al (2005), Hegedüšová et al (2009) and Janišová et al (2012). The populations of the Western Carpathians seem to represent an isolated occurrence of an alpine migrant with an individual evolution (Holub 1999).…”

Spreading speeds for plant populations in landscapes with low environmental variation

“…Low environmental variation in population measures and environmental conditions within landscapes has been documented by several authors [27,28]. For example, Janišová et al (2012) [29] measured the demographic matrices of the endangered flowering plant Tephroseris longifolia across five locations in a grassland/scrub landscape in the Czech Republic and Slovakia and found their principal eigenvalues to vary between 1.25 and 2.04 (a maximum relative variation of 0.31 from the mean). Generally, one might expect a population to encounter low environmental variation when spreading across a single continuous habitat, such as prairie, boreal forest, or regions converted to arable agriculture.…”