Forty years of vegetation change in former coppice‐with‐standards woodlands as a result of management change and N deposition

Becker, Thomas; Spanka, Julia; Schroder, L.J.; Leuschner, Christoph

doi:10.1111/avsc.12282

Cited by 48 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…In our study region, species richness has declined significantly. The declining species richness of European lowland forests is considered to be a result of the cessation of traditional forest management (Hédl et al., ; Kopecký et al., ) and environmental eutrophication and acidification (Baeten et al., ; Becker, Spanka, Schröder, & Leuschner, ; Jantsch, Fischer, Fischer, & Winter, ). However, changes in species richness are variable and some recent studies actually found increasing species richness in European forests (Förster, Becker, Gerlach, Meesenburg, & Leuschner, ; Reczyńska & Świerkosz, ; Vild et al., ; Strubelt, Diekmann, & Zacharias, ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Landscape‐scale vegetation homogenization in Central European sub‐montane forests over the past 50 years

Prach

Kopecký

2018

Applied Vegetation Science

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Questions: How did plant species richness and spatial heterogeneity of the vegetation change across sub-montane forests over the past 50 years? Did the vegetation changes reflect eutrophication, acidification and management changes, which the area underwent during the second half of the 20th century?Location: Ordinary managed forests sampled across 2500 km 2 of a typical Central European sub-montane landscape in the southern part of the Czech Republic. Methods:We resampled 156 quasi-permanent plots sampled in the 1950s-1970s and covering the whole range of forest vegetation in the region. We compared understorey plant species richness and community composition between the surveys and tested for temporal changes in the spatial heterogeneity (β-diversity) of vegetation.Results: Species richness and dissimilarity in species composition among plots decreased significantly between the surveys. The vegetation of the plots also changed significantly, but there were no clear directional changes across all plots. The vegetation homogenization was driven by local extinctions of specialist species, especially competitively weak species adapted to nutrient-poor conditions. Few generalist species expanded between the surveys. Conclusions:We found evidence of taxonomic homogenization of forest understoreys across a large sub-montane region. This vegetation homogenization was probably driven by complex landscape changes that took place in the last century. Varied traditional management regimes were replaced with largely uniform management, and the once spatially diverse landscape mosaic has become simpler. The resulting transition to species-poor and less variable vegetation was probably further accelerated by environmental eutrophication. Our results thus complement previous forest herb layer resurveys, which focused mostly on lowland forests and small nature reserves, and suggest that landscape-scale taxonomic homogenization is occurring across Central European forests. K E Y W O R D Sbeta diversity, biotic homogenization, eutrophication, forest understorey, landscape change, semi-permanent plots, species richness, temperate forests, vegetation resurvey 374 |

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Landscape‐scale vegetation homogenization in Central European sub‐montane forests over the past 50 years

Prach

Kopecký

2018

Applied Vegetation Science

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“…comm., 2006, quoted in Hahn & Emborg, ; Myking & Skrøppa, ). Indeed, in Carpinus betulus woodland on limestone of central Germany, Becker, Spanka, Schröder, and Leuschner () showed that U. glabra had increased in the shrub layer from almost complete absence in 1970 to 8% cover by 2011, in this case aided by conversion management from coppice into high forest and by increased atmospheric N inputs.…”

Section: Response To Biotic Factorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biological Flora of the British Isles: Ulmus glabra

2018

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This account presents information on all aspects of the biology of Ulmus glabraHudson (wych elm) that are relevant to understanding its ecological characteristics and behaviour. The main topics are presented within the standard framework of the Biological Flora of the British Isles: distribution, habitat, communities, responses to biotic factors, responses to environment, structure and physiology, phenology, floral and seed characters, herbivores and disease, history and conservation.2. Ulmus glabra is a large forest tree, and often an important canopy tree in ancient and semi-natural woodlands. It is primarily native to the north and west of Britain and much of mainland Europe. It is the only elm native to Ireland. It is the most distinct of the British elms in that it rarely suckers and sets abundant viable seed.Although found on limestone screes and cliffs, and hedgerows, it is primarily a woodland tree, especially on moist, basic soils. In many secondary woodlands, it often co-occurs with Acer pseudoplatanus and has ecological needs that are similar to Fraxinus excelsior. 3.Ulmus glabra has clusters of c. 25 hermaphrodite flowers appearing before the leaves on previous year's growth. Seeds are wind-dispersed, falling in April to July, but remain viable for only a few days. Nevertheless, seedling establishment can be abundant. Hybridisation with other northern European elms is common but hybrids are notoriously difficult to identify and therefore probably under-recorded.4. The health and survival of wych elm in Europe has been seriously compromised since the 1970s due to Dutch elm disease caused by the fungus Ophiostoma novoulmi, transmitted by elm bark beetles (Scolytus spp.). To the south of its Scottish stronghold, many elms are reduced to small trees regrowing from basal sprouts or seeds. These trees tend to be reinfected once trunk diameter exceeds 10 cm.Fortunately for its long-term survival, seed production usually begins a number of years before they are reinfected.

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“…An important limitation of such studies is their constrained ability to test the ecological mechanisms underlying temporal community change. Indeed, most legacy studies pertain to a single site or region, meaning a set of plots within an area sharing a similar climate and history, in which case community change might be caused by many local changes, such as ongoing land use (Hermy & Verheyen, 2007;Kampichler, van Turnhout, Devictor, & van der Jeugd, 2012;Newbold et al, 2015), historical management legacies (Becker, Spanka, Schröder, & Leuschner, 2016;Perring et al, 2017;Vanhellemont, Baeten, & Verheyen, 2014), nitrogen deposition (Becker-Scarpitta, Bardat, Lalanne, & Vellend, 2017), or grazing (Frerker, Sabo, & Waller, 2014;Vild et al, 2016).…”

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confidence: 99%

Four decades of plant community change along a continental gradient of warming

Becker‐Scarpitta

Vissault

Vellend

2019

Global Change Biology

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Many studies of individual sites have revealed biotic changes consistent with climate warming (e.g., upward elevational distribution shifts), but our understanding of the tremendous variation among studies in the magnitude of such biotic changes is minimal. In this study, we resurveyed forest vegetation plots 40 years after the initial surveys in three protected areas along a west‐to‐east gradient of increasingly steep recent warming trends in eastern Canada (Québec). Consistent with the hypothesis that climate warming has been an important driver of vegetation change, we found an increasing magnitude of changes in species richness and composition from west to east among the three parks. For the two mountainous parks, we found no significant changes in elevational species’ distributions in the easternmost park (raw mean = +11.4 m at Forillon Park) where warming has been minimal, and significant upward distribution shifts in the centrally located park (+38.9 m at Mont‐Mégantic), where the recent warming trend has been marked. Community Temperature Indices (CTI), reflecting the average affinities of locally co‐occurring species to temperature conditions across their geographic ranges (“Species Temperature Indices”), did not change over time as predicted. However, close examination of the underpinnings of CTI values suggested a high sensitivity to uncertainty in individual species’ temperature indices, and so a potentially limited responsiveness to warming. Overall, by testing a priori predictions concerning variation among parks in the direction and magnitude of vegetation changes, we have provided stronger evidence for a link between climate warming and biotic responses than otherwise possible and provided a potential explanation for large variation among studies in warming‐related biotic changes.

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Forty years of vegetation change in former coppice‐with‐standards woodlands as a result of management change and N deposition

Cited by 48 publications

References 43 publications

Landscape‐scale vegetation homogenization in Central European sub‐montane forests over the past 50 years

Landscape‐scale vegetation homogenization in Central European sub‐montane forests over the past 50 years

Biological Flora of the British Isles: Ulmus glabra

Four decades of plant community change along a continental gradient of warming

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