Effects of habitat area, isolation, and landscape diversity on plant species richness of calcareous grasslands

By Jochen Krauss, Alexandra-Maria Klein, I. Steffan‐Dewenter, T. Tscharntke. Biodiversity and Conservation, 2004

243 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Calcareous grasslands harbour a high biodiversity, but are highly fragmented and endangered in central Europe. We tested the relative importance of habitat area, habitat isolation, and landscape diversity for species richness of vascular plants. Plants were recorded on 31 calcareous grasslands in the vicinity of the city of Göttingen (Germany) and were divided into habitat specialist and generalist species. We expected that habitat specialists were more affected by area and isolation, and habitat generalists more by landscape diversity. In multiple regression analysis, the species richness of habitat specialists (n = 66 species) and habitat generalists (n = 242) increased with habitat area, while habitat isolation or landscape diversity did not have significant effects. Contrary to predictions, habitat specialists were not more affected by reduced habitat area than generalists. This may have been caused by delayed extinction of long-living plant specialists in small grasslands. Additionally, non-specialists may profit more from high habitat heterogeneity in large grasslands compared to habitat specialists. Although habitat isolation and landscape diversity revealed no significant effect on local plant diversity, only an average of 54% of habitat specialists of the total species pool were found within one study site. In conclusion, habitat area was important for plant species conservation, but regional variation between habitats contributed also an important 46% of total species richness.

Subfields: Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Nature and Landscape Conservation, Plant Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/0769123ece8c045139925913be2c8f99fd27dd18

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Citations in the corpus

Factors and processes affecting plant biodiversity in permanent grasslands. A review (2011, unknown): “Krauss et al. (2004) have suggested that the surrounding landscape of the studied grasslands is too complex, whatever the scale considered, to highlight an effect on permanent grassland vegetation.”
The PREDICTS database: a global database of how local terrestrial biodiversity responds to human impacts (2014, background): “…34 Kessler et al. 2009; 35 Hylander and Nemomissa 2009; 36 Barlow et al. 2007; 37 Kumar and Shahabuddin 2005; 38 Kessler et al. 2005; 39 Hietz 2005; 40 Krauss et al. 2004; 41 Hern andez et al. 2012; 42 Calvi~no-Cancela et al. 2012; 43 Golodets et al. 2010; 44 Castro et al. 2010; 45 Milder et al.…”
Landscape moderation of biodiversity patterns and processes ‐ eight hypotheses (2012, background): “…habitats, or vice versa, is an important process affecting wildlife populations in human-dominated, fragmented landscapes (Landis et al., 2000; Krauss et al., 2004; Ries et al., 2004; Tubelis et al., 2004; Clough et al., 2005; Schmidt & Tscharntke, 2005a, b; Biological Reviews 87 (2012)…”
The rough edges of the conservation genetics paradigm for plants (2006, background): “Whether a similar rescue effect could be prominent in plants, which generally have much lower migration rates and smaller migration distances than animals, is less clear, but several studies have demonstrated that isolation may affect extinction regardless of local population size (e.g. Dupre & Ehrl”
Community richness and stability in agricultural landscapes: The importance of surrounding habitats (2007, background): “Yet, landscape variables of non-cropped surrounding habitats in agricultural landscapes are expected to play a major role in bird assemblage richness (Söderström and Pärt, 2000; Krauss et al., 2004).”
Slow response of plant species richness to habitat loss and fragmentation. (2005, result): “Several studies (Kelly et al. 1989; Köchy & Rydin 1997; Krauss et al. 2004) have, however, not detected a significant species–area relationship while using sample plots with fixed size, but the reason may be the same as in our case.”
Dispersal traits determine plant response to habitat connectivity in an urban landscape (2011, background): “Within large species data sets, responsiveness to fragmentation ranged between rare responses (e.g. Dupré and Ehrlén 2002; Krauss et al. 2004) to connectivity being the main predictor (Bastin and Thomas 1999; Piessens et al. 2005).”
Vascular plant and Orthoptera diversity in relation to grassland management and landscape composition in the European Alps (2007, background): “The non-significant influence of landscape variables on plant species richness and composition conforms to several studies (Dauber et al. 2003; Krauss et al. 2004) reflecting that the actual state of meadow vegetation largely depends on local factors.”