Forest plant species richness in small, fragmented mixed deciduous forest patches: the role of area, time and dispersal limitation

Abstract

Aim The research aimed to investigate how plant species richness of small, fragmented forest patches changes over time. Also interactions between time and area were studied in relation to species richness. Finally, the relative importance of plant dispersal limitation on the process of species accumulation was examined by investigating how species were distributed within a regional landscape.Location Mixed deciduous forest patches in central Belgium. MethodsThe land use history of a region of 80 km 2 was reconstructed using nine historical maps dating from 1775 to 1991. Within a central area of 42 km 2 , 241 forest patches were surveyed for presence/absence of 203 species predominantly occurring in forests. Aggregation of species within this region was estimated using a Monte Carlo simulation. Spatial and temporal patterns of species richness were investigated by both regression and analysis of variance (ANOVA ANOVA).Results Fifty-one of 103 species showed signi®cant spatial aggregation patterns, suggesting severe dispersal limitation. Species richness signi®cantly increased with age. However, the effects of time on species richness could not be separated from area and area and time clearly interacted. Slopes of regression equations for species number on area and patch age were shown to be signi®cantly interrelated.Main conclusions Area and time cannot be treated independently as predictors of plant species richness. Dispersal proved to be important in structuring local forest plant community composition, contrary to most other studies that have investigated local forest plant community structure. The processes of forest succession and species accumulation are controlled by both local and regional processes. More studies focusing on the regional factors determining local community composition are needed in order to fully understand the process of forest plant community assembly.

Effects of environment, habitat configuration and forest continuity on the distribution of forest plant species

“…In addition to data from the studies in Verheyen et al (2003), data from 7 recent publications (Heinken, 1998;Graae, 2000;Graae & Sunde, 2000;Jacquemyn, Butaye & Hermy, 2001;Wulf, 2003;Brunet, 2004;Kolb & Diekmann, 2004) were used in the calculation of the CCI. The data met the same criteria as given in Verheyen et al (2003), and the same methods were used for calculating the CCI (but with opposite sign, cf.…”

Potential use of pine plantations to restore native forests in a highly fragmented river basin

“…This could also be due to an interaction between time and patch size, because plantations had greater patch sizes and were younger than the natural forests. The effects of time on species richness could not be separated from patch area, and patch area and time clearly interacted (Jacquemyn et al, 2001).…”

National Assessment of the Fragmentation Levels and Fragmentation-Class Transitions of the Forests in Mexico for 2002, 2008 and 2013

“…Studies have shown that more than a century after forests stabilize at some level of fragmentation a deficit still persists in the number of plant species that originally occupied those forests [2], and that the processes of species colonization of second-growth and fragmented forests may continue for centuries with 100-200-year-old recent forests still having lower species richness of forest herbaceous vegetation than ancient forests [2,[6][7][8]. Increase in fragmentation has also been identified as a major threat to the conservation of forest ecosystems and their functions as a whole [9][10][11][12][13].…”