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Karin Hall

Professor

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Small-scale plant species richness and evenness in semi-natural grasslands respond differently to habitat fragmentation

Author

  • Triin Reitalu
  • Martin Sykes
  • Lotten Jönsson
  • Mikael Lonn
  • Karin Hall
  • Marie Vandewalle
  • Honor C Prentice

Summary, in English

The study explores whether small-scale species diversity, species evenness and species richness in semi-natural grassland communities are similarly associated with present management regime and/or present and historical landscape context (percentage of different land-cover types in the surroundings). Species diversity, evenness and richness were recorded within 44150 x 50 cm grassland plots in a 4.5 x 4.5 km agricultural landscape on bland, Sweden. Recent and historical land-cover maps (years 2004, 1959, 1938, 1835, and 1800) were used to characterize the present and past landscape context of the sampled vegetation plots. Partial regression and simultaneous autoregressive models were used to explore the relationships between species diversity measures (Shannon diversity, richness and evenness) and different explanatory variables while accounting for spatial autocorrelation in the data. The results indicated that species richness was relatively sensitive to grassland isolation, while the response of species evenness to isolation was characterized by a degree of inertia. Because the richness and evenness components of species diversity may respond differently to habitat fragmentation, we suggest that monitoring projects and empirical studies that focus on changes in biodiversity in semi-natural grasslands should include the assessment of species evenness - as a complement to the assessment of species richness. In addition, our results indicated that the development and persistence of a species-rich and even grassland vegetation was favoured in areas that have historically (in the 19th century) been surrounded by grasslands. Information on landscape history should, whenever possible, be incorporated into the planning of strategies for grassland conservation. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Department/s

  • Faculty of Science
  • Dept of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science
  • Biodiversity

Publishing year

2009

Language

English

Pages

899-908

Publication/Series

Biological Conservation

Volume

142

Issue

4

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Elsevier

Topic

  • Physical Geography
  • Ecology

Keywords

  • Historical maps
  • Land-use history
  • Species diversity
  • Shannon diversity index
  • Management intensity

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1873-2917