Frequency of plant species in remnants of calcareous grassland and their dispersal and persistence characteristics

Maurer, Katrin; Durka, Walter; Stöcklin, Jürg

doi:10.1078/1439-1791-00162

Cited by 56 publications

(55 citation statements)

References 37 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Connectivity has a positive effect on plant species richness in grasslands in Belgium (Piessens et al 2005;Piessens et al 2004). Plant species richness increases with increasing connectivity due to increasing colonization rates (Joshi et al 2006;Maurer et al 2003;Piessens et al 2004) and decreasing extinction rates (Pacha and Petit 2008;Piessens et al 2004) because of higher gene flow (Piessens et al 2004). Connectivity has a positive effect on the occurrence of a mixed grassland and forest herbaceous species, Geranium sylvaticum L., in grasslands in UK (Pacha and Petit 2008).…”

Section: Functional Connectivitymentioning

confidence: 95%

Factors and processes affecting plant biodiversity in permanent grasslands. A review

Gaujour¹,

Amiaud²,

Mignolet³

et al. 2011

Agron. Sustain. Dev.

143

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Research has delivered convincing findings on the effect of biodiversity on ecosystem functioning and humankind. Indeed, ecosystems provide provisioning, regulating, supporting, and cultural services. The global value of annual ecosystem services of grasslands and rangelands is about US$ 232 ha −1 year −1 . Nevertheless, the precise evaluation of biodiversity benefits remains challenging. This issue is due to valuation methods, subjective assumptions, and complexity of drivers of plant community dynamics. Here, we review the primary factors that influence plant diversity of permanent grasslands, and we describe underlying processes. These factors must indeed be identified to focus policies meant to preserve and restore plant diversity and to advise farmers about efficient decision rules. We show that plant dynamics of permanent grasslands cannot be explained simply by agricultural management rules, e.g., grazing, fertilization, and mowing, implemented at the field scale. The configuration of the surrounding landscape, e.g., landscape heterogeneity, habitat fragmentation, and connectivity, acts as a species filter that defines the regional species pool and controls seed flow. The regional species pool often contains higher species richness in a heterogeneous landscape, because of a higher diversity of suitable habitats. This regional pool could be a major species sources for permanent grasslands according to the seed flow. We discuss the need to consider all of these factors to understand plant species composition of permanent grasslands and the necessity to study plant communities using both taxonomic and functional approaches. In order to report this integrative approach, we propose a conceptual model based on three ecological challengesdispersal, establishment, and persistence-that are considered to act as filters on plant diversity, and a graphical representation of the complexity of such studies due to the interaction effects between plant dispersal abilities, forage productivity, disturbances induced by farming practices, and landscape heterogeneity on plant diversity. Last, we discuss the ability of farmers to manage each factor and the necessity of such study in the improvement of the current agro-environment schemes efficiency for farmland biodiversity restoration or preservation.

show abstract

Section: Functional Connectivitymentioning

confidence: 95%

Factors and processes affecting plant biodiversity in permanent grasslands. A review

Gaujour¹,

Amiaud²,

Mignolet³

et al. 2011

Agron. Sustain. Dev.

143

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Species persistence in fragmented landscapes depends on the species' clonal ability (Maurer et al 2003;Piessens and Hermy 2006;Lindborg 2007), seed bank longevity (Piessens et al 2004(Piessens et al , 2005Lindborg 2007;Tremlová and Münzbergová 2007), and species turnover rate or life span (Bossuyt and Honnay 2006;Vellend et al 2006). Although few studies have provided empirical evidence, long-distance dispersal may be another crucial aspect for the survival of plant populations in a fragmented landscape (Bohrer et al 2005;Adriaens et al 2007;Lindborg 2007).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Grassland plant functional groups exhibit distinct time-lags in response to historical landscape change

et al. 2011

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Recent studies have shown significant impacts of past landscapes on present distributions of species, and discussed the existence of an extinction debt. Understanding of the processes building an extinction debt is fundamentally important for explaining present and future diversity patterns of species in fragmented landscapes. Few empirical studies, however, have examined the responses of different plant functional groups (PFGs) to historical landscape changes. We aimed to reveal PFG-based differences in species' persistence by focusing on their vegetative, reproductive, and dispersal traits. We examined whether the present distributions of PFGs of grassland species in the edges of remnant woodlands established on former semi-natural grasslands are related to the past surrounding landscapes at different time periods and spatial scales. The effects of past landscapes varied significantly among the PFGs. Richness of short, early flowering forbs and tall, late-flowering, wind-dispersed forbs showed significant positive relationships with the surrounding habitat proportions more than 50 years ago (the 1950s) and at wide spatial scales (more than 1 km 2 ). Richness of tall, late-flowering forbs with unassisted and other types of dispersal mechanisms showed positive relationships with the surrounding habitat proportions in recent times (the 1970s) and at smaller spatial scales (0.25 km 2 ). Our results suggested that plant growth form, flowering season and dispersal ability-with additional information on seed bank persistence-can be good indicators for identifying species' specific sensitivity to surrounding habitat loss. Trait-based approaches can be useful for understanding present and future distributions of grassland species with different persistence strategies in human-modified landscapes.

show abstract

“…Due to their drastic decline, semi-natural grasslands can be used to investigate the impacts of fragmentation on the persistence of local species populations (Fischer and Stocklin 1997;Maurer et al 2003). Indeed, numerous studies on the eVects of habitat patch area and isolation (or connectivity) on insect species richness and populations have been conducted (Wettstein and Schmid 1999;Collinge et al 2003;Krauss et al 2004b;Hanski and Pöyry 2007).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Relative importance of habitat area, connectivity, management and local factors for vascular plants: spring ephemerals in boreal semi-natural grasslands

2008

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Using species and environmental data from an extensive grassland area in south-western Finland, we investigated the eVect of patch area and connectivity, management and local habitat variables on the occurrence of spring-Xowering vascular plants and their richness in boreal agricultural landscapes. Generalized linear models (GLM) and variation partitioning were used to study the explanatory power of the three groups of variables and their combined contributions on the richness and occurrence of six spring-Xowering plant species. Generalized additive models (GAMs) and associated cross-validation tests were used to evaluate the predictability of the species occurrence and richness patterns. Present-day grassland patch area and connectivity were important predictors for occurrence and richness of the studied plant species. In addition, local habitat factors, especially radiation, accounted for major fractions of occurrence patterns of the studied species. Hybrid models including variables from all three variable groups had higher explanatory power and predictive capability than partial models. However, performance of the separate singlespecies models varied considerably between the six study species. Exclusion of radiation or connectivity from the hybrid models decreased their predictive performance, suggesting that these factors are of particular importance for grassland plant species at their northern range margins. When developing conservation and management planning for grassland plant species in Northern Europe, attention should be paid to well-connected networks of grassland patches including large, steeply-sloped patches with a favorable microclimate.

show abstract

Frequency of plant species in remnants of calcareous grassland and their dispersal and persistence characteristics

Cited by 56 publications

References 37 publications

Factors and processes affecting plant biodiversity in permanent grasslands. A review

Factors and processes affecting plant biodiversity in permanent grasslands. A review

Grassland plant functional groups exhibit distinct time-lags in response to historical landscape change

Relative importance of habitat area, connectivity, management and local factors for vascular plants: spring ephemerals in boreal semi-natural grasslands

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About