TY - JOUR

T1 - Drier, darker and more fertile

T2 - 140 years of plant habitat change driven by land-use intensification

AU - Nielsen, Tora Finderup

AU - Sand-Jensen, Kaj

AU - Bruun, Hans Henrik

PY - 2021

Y1 - 2021

N2 - Questions Land-use change is a key driver of biodiversity change. Delayed biotic responses to land-use change impedes the establishment of causal links between specific anthropogenic changes and resulting biodiversity change. Therefore, we aimed at investigating changes to plant species pools 1) at time scales long enough to encompass past land-use changes, even changes that have ceased from collective memory, and 2) at spatial scales wide enough to encompass landscape-wide changes to habitat quantity and quality. Location Denmark, ten regions between 54° 3' to 56° 7' N and 10° 4' to 12° 4' E. Methods We assessed changes to regional plant species pools over c. 140 years by comparing high quality legacy data to recent re-surveys in ten Danish regions. To identify anthropogenic drivers of plant compositional change, we assessed ecological properties of winning and losing plant species and compared observed biotic changes to land-cover data spatially and temporally matching the regional flora data. Results Winner species were strongly associated with shaded, fertile, well-drained conditions. Loser species were associated with open, infertile conditions with either moist or xeric soils. The major land-use changes driving biotic change were: i) drainage of moist and wet biotopes, ii) active afforestation and passive scrub overgrowth due to ceased grazing, and iii) landscape-wide increased nutrient availability. However, the magnitude of increase or decrease in the area of a land cover type was a poor predictor of the number of habitat-associated winner or loser species. This suggests that degradation of extant biotopes and/or low quality of new biotopes limits plant species richness, in particular of habitat specialists. Conclusions We demonstrate a displacement of plant ecospace towards mesic, shaded and fertile conditions, with profound effect on plant diversity, and mainly driven by intensified agricultural/silvicultural use of the landscape matrix, which has strongly affected the main plant habitats in scattered semi-natural fragments.

AB - Questions Land-use change is a key driver of biodiversity change. Delayed biotic responses to land-use change impedes the establishment of causal links between specific anthropogenic changes and resulting biodiversity change. Therefore, we aimed at investigating changes to plant species pools 1) at time scales long enough to encompass past land-use changes, even changes that have ceased from collective memory, and 2) at spatial scales wide enough to encompass landscape-wide changes to habitat quantity and quality. Location Denmark, ten regions between 54° 3' to 56° 7' N and 10° 4' to 12° 4' E. Methods We assessed changes to regional plant species pools over c. 140 years by comparing high quality legacy data to recent re-surveys in ten Danish regions. To identify anthropogenic drivers of plant compositional change, we assessed ecological properties of winning and losing plant species and compared observed biotic changes to land-cover data spatially and temporally matching the regional flora data. Results Winner species were strongly associated with shaded, fertile, well-drained conditions. Loser species were associated with open, infertile conditions with either moist or xeric soils. The major land-use changes driving biotic change were: i) drainage of moist and wet biotopes, ii) active afforestation and passive scrub overgrowth due to ceased grazing, and iii) landscape-wide increased nutrient availability. However, the magnitude of increase or decrease in the area of a land cover type was a poor predictor of the number of habitat-associated winner or loser species. This suggests that degradation of extant biotopes and/or low quality of new biotopes limits plant species richness, in particular of habitat specialists. Conclusions We demonstrate a displacement of plant ecospace towards mesic, shaded and fertile conditions, with profound effect on plant diversity, and mainly driven by intensified agricultural/silvicultural use of the landscape matrix, which has strongly affected the main plant habitats in scattered semi-natural fragments.

KW - Afforestation

KW - drainage

KW - ecospace

KW - fertilization

KW - historical resurvey

KW - land-cover change

KW - legacy data

KW - plant biodiversity

U2 - 10.1111/jvs.13066

DO - 10.1111/jvs.13066

M3 - Tidsskriftartikel

VL - 32

JO - Journal of Vegetation Science

JF - Journal of Vegetation Science

SN - 1100-9233

IS - 4

M1 - e13066

ER -