Scale-dependence of species richness in European dry grasslands.
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| Year of publication | 2009 |
| Type | Conference abstract |
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| Description | It is known that precipitation, soil pH, productivity or soil depth control species richness in European dry grasslands. However, relationship between species richness and other factors are usually studied on a single scale. Species richness of Moravian dry grasslands (alliances of Festucion valesiacae and Cirsio-Brachypodion) varies across space and scales. This variation is not only weakly determined by macroclimatic factors such as annual precipitation or temperature because of their narrow range in Moravia. The grasslands of the White Carpathian Mountains are remarkable for their very high local species richness and peculiar species composition. However, previous studies reported that these grasslands are not exceptionally rich on a very small scale, if compared with some other European grasslands. We studied dry and species-rich grasslands in southern and south-eastern Moravia, Czech Republic, on two scales of 1 m2 and 100 m2. We measured species richness, soil depth, soil pH and above-ground biomass. Species richness for plot size of 1 m2 ranged between 20 and 58 species. Species richness differed considerably for plots of 100 m2 where the range was 34 to 133 species. The sites in the White Carpathians usually contained over 100 species per plot. Slope (z) of the species-area curves ranged from 0.12 to 0.50 and it was correlated with vegetation cover; the more open vegetation, the steeper slope of the species-area curve. The richest site in the White Carpathian Mountains had an intermediate slope of z=0.22. Ecological factors, such as soil pH, productivity or soil depth significantly correlated with species richness on both measured scales. |
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