White Carpathian grasslands: can local ecological factors explain their extraordinary species richness?

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Publikace nespadá pod Filozofickou fakultu, ale pod Přírodovědeckou fakultu. Oficiální stránka publikace je na webu muni.cz.
Název česky Bělokarpatské louky: mohou lokální ekologické faktory vysvětlit jejich výjimečné druhové bohatství?
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MERUNKOVÁ Kristina PREISLEROVÁ Zdenka CHYTRÝ Milan

Rok publikování 2012
Druh Článek v odborném periodiku
Časopis / Zdroj Preslia
Fakulta / Pracoviště MU

Přírodovědecká fakulta

Citace
www http://www.preslia.cz/P122Merunkova.pdf
Obor Ekologie - společenstva
Klíčová slova Bílé Karpaty; Czech Republic; diversity; dry grassland; meadow; nutrients; productivity; Slovakia; soil pH; vascular plants; Western Carpathians
Popis Semi-dry grasslands in the White Carpathian (Bílé Karpaty) Mountains on the Czech-Slovak border are famous for their extremely high species richness. In places they contain more than 130 species of vascular plants per 100m2 and for some plot sizes they holdworld records in the number of vascular plant species, but the reasons for this are poorly understood. Here we ask whether the high number of species in these grasslands can be explained by local ecological factors.We compared the White Carpathian grasslands with similar grasslands in adjacent areas in the west (southern Moravia) and the east (InnerWestern Carpathians), which are on average notably poorer in species than those in the White Carpathians. In both of these areas, we sampled grasslands that were among the speciesrichest in the regional context and had a similar physiognomy, species composition and ecology as those in the White Carpathians.We found 75 sites with >70 and >25 species of vascular plants per 100 m2 and 1 m2, respectively, in which we recorded species composition and local environmental conditions, including precipitation, soil depth, soil pH and nutrient concentrations, above-ground biomass production and nutrients in plant biomass. Although the White Carpathian grasslands were considerably richer in species than the richest grasslands in the adjacent regions, there were no differences in the values of the factors studied that could provide an unequivocal explanation of their high species richness. However, the values of the factors studied were within the ranges reported in the literature as conducive to high species richness in temperate grasslands. We conclude that the high species richness recorded in the White Carpathian grasslands cannot be explained by a single factor. It results from a unique combination of regional factors (long history of these grasslands, large size of individual grassland areas and their existence in a landscape mosaic with forests, scrub and small wetlands), local abiotic factors (soil pH, soil nutrient status, moisture regime and resulting grassland productivity that are suitable for many species from the regional species pool) and management (low fertilizer input and mowing once a year in late spring or summer).
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