Drivers of temporal changes in temperate forest plant diversity vary across spatial scales

Bernhardt‐Römermann, Markus; Baeten, Lander; Craven, Dylan; Frenne, Pieter De; Hédl, Radim; Lenoir, Jonathan; Bert, Didier; Brunet, Jörg; Chudomelová, Markéta; Decocq, Guillaume; Dierschke, H.; Dirnböck, Thomas; Dörfler, Inken; Heinken, Thilo; Hermy, Martin; Hommel, P.W.F.M.; Jaroszewicz, Bogdan; Keczyński, Andrzej; Kelly, Daniel L.; Kirby, K. J.; Kopecký, Martin; Macek, Martin; Máliš, František; Mirtl, Michael; Mitchell, Fraser; Naaf, Tobias; Newman, Miles; Peterken, G. F.; Petřík, Petr; Schmidt, Wolfgang; Standovár, Tibor; Tóth, Zoltán; Calster, Hans Van; Verstraeten, Gorik; Vladovič, Jozef; Vild, Ondřej; Wulf, Monika; Verheyen, Kris

doi:10.1111/gcb.12993

Cited by 135 publications

(175 citation statements)

References 48 publications

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“…; Bernhardt‐Römermann et al. ). Our results for vascular plants were less clear, but not inconsistent with the hypothesis of N deposition as a driver of vegetation change.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Long‐term community change: bryophytes are more responsive than vascular plants to nitrogen deposition and warming

Becker‐Scarpitta

Bardat

Lalanne

et al. 2017

J Vegetation Science

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Aims Many studies of vegetation change over multiple decades have focused on vascular plants, but very few on bryophytes, despite the importance of bryophytes for overall plant biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. Using a repeated survey of vascular plants and bryophytes in a forest ecosystem, we tested predictions of the hypotheses that: (1) vegetation change has been driven by N deposition and climate warming, and (2) bryophytes are more responsive to environmental change than vascular plants. Location Lowland temperate forest, northwest France. Methods In forest plots initially surveyed in 1976, we re‐surveyed both vascular plants and bryophytes in 2009 and 2012, respectively. We analysed changes in α‐diversity, β‐diversity, and species composition, and we used community‐weighted mean values of species affinities for temperature, light, pH, soil moisture and N to assess the temporal responses potentially caused by warming, N deposition, or possibly a changing light regime. Results We observed significantly increased species richness of bryophytes and decreased richness of vascular plants. Community affinities to N, pH and temperature increased significantly for bryophytes, but not for vascular plants, although the change over time in N affinities for vascular plants was qualitatively in the predicted direction. Bryophytes showed a higher magnitude of temporal community change than vascular plants, both in terms of overall species composition and environmental affinities, indicating a higher responsiveness of bryophytes to environmental change. Conclusion Overall, the result of more marked temporal community change for bryophytes suggests that the many studies of changes in vascular plant communities over time might underestimate the sensitivity of the broader plant community (including cryptogams) to environmental change.

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“…; Bernhardt‐Römermann et al. ). Our results for vascular plants were less clear, but not inconsistent with the hypothesis of N deposition as a driver of vegetation change.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…; Wiegmann & Waller ; Bernhardt‐Römermann et al. ). In communities that have not undergone major land‐use transitions, dominant global change factors include climate change (especially warming) and atmospheric N deposition (Field et al.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Long‐term community change: bryophytes are more responsive than vascular plants to nitrogen deposition and warming

Becker‐Scarpitta

Bardat

Lalanne

et al. 2017

J Vegetation Science

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“…, Bernhardt‐Roemermann et al. ), and consistent changes across scales (e.g., Eskildsen et al. , Harrison et al.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Lifting the veil: richness measurements fail to detect systematic biodiversity change over three decades

Larsen

Chase

Durance

et al. 2018

Ecology

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While there is widespread recognition of human involvement in biodiversity loss globally, at smaller spatial extents, the effects are less clear. One reason is that local effects are obscured by the use of summary biodiversity variables, such as species richness, that provide only limited insight into complex biodiversity change. Here, we use 30 yr of invertebrate data from a metacommunity of 10 streams in Wales, UK, combined with regional surveys, to examine temporal changes in multiple biodiversity measures at local, metacommunity, and regional scales. There was no change in taxonomic or functional α-diversity and spatial β-diversity metrics at any scale over the 30-yr time series, suggesting a relative stasis in the system and no evidence for on-going homogenization. However, temporal changes in mean species composition were evident. Two independent approaches to estimate species niche breadth showed that compositional changes were associated with a systematic decline in mean community specialization. Estimates of species-specific local extinction and immigration probabilities suggested that this decline was linked to lower recolonization rates of specialists, rather than greater local extinction rates. Our results reveal the need for caution in implying stasis from patterns in α-diversity and spatial β-diversity measures that might mask non-random biodiversity changes over time. We also show how different but complementary approaches to estimate niche breadth and functional distinctness of species can reveal long-term trends in community homogenization likely to be important to conservation and ecosystem function.

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“…Recent examples of studies that resurvey legacy data are found across various ecosystems, ranging from mountain tops (Wipf, Stöckli, Herz, & Rixen, ), over forests (Naaf & Kolk, ), moorlands (Britton, Hester, Hewison, Potts, & Ross, ) and hedgerows (Litza & Diekmann, ), to prairies (Alstad et al., ) and grasslands (Gillet, Mauchamp, Badot, & Mouly, ; Stevens et al., ). Besides these single region and single system studies, more and more multi‐region and/or multi‐system studies are emerging (Bernhardt‐Römermann et al., ; De Frenne et al., ). Combining resurveys allows us to check for the generality of community change (Vellend, Baeten et al., ) and helps to better understand the relative importance of, and interactions between, the different drivers of change (Verheyen et al., ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Observer and relocation errors matter in resurveys of historical vegetation plots

Verheyen

Bažány

Chećko

et al. 2018

J Vegetation Science

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Aim Revisits of non‐permanent, relocatable plots first surveyed several decades ago offer a direct way to observe vegetation change and form a unique and increasingly used source of information for global change research. Despite the important insights that can be obtained from resurveying these quasi‐permanent vegetation plots, their use is prone to both observer and relocation errors. Studying the combined effects of both error types is important since they will play out together in practice and it is yet unknown to what extent observed vegetation changes are influenced by these errors. Methods We designed a study that mimicked all steps in a resurvey study and that allowed determination of the magnitude of observer errors only vs the joint observer and relocation errors. Communities of vascular plants growing in the understorey of temperate forests were selected as study system. Ten regions in Europe were covered to explore generality across contexts and 50 observers were involved, which deliberately differed in their experience in making vegetation records. Results The mean geographic distance between plots in the observer+relocation error data set was 24 m. The mean relative difference in species richness in the observer error and the observer+relocation data set was 15% and 21%, respectively. The mean “pseudo‐turnover” between the five records at a quasi‐permanent plot location was on average 0.21 and 0.35 for the observer error and observer+relocation error data sets, respectively. More detailed analyses of the compositional variation showed that the nestedness and turnover components were of equal importance in the observer data set, whereas turnover was much more important than nestedness in the observer+relocation data set. Interestingly, the differences between the observer and the observer+relocation data sets largely disappeared when looking at temporal change: both the changes in species richness and species composition over time were very similar in these data sets. Conclusions Our results demonstrate that observer and relocation errors are non‐negligible when resurveying quasi‐permanent plots. A careful interpretation of the results of resurvey studies is warranted, especially when changes are assessed based on a low number of plots. We conclude by listing measures that should be taken to maximally increase the precision and the strength of the inferences drawn from vegetation resurveys.

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Drivers of temporal changes in temperate forest plant diversity vary across spatial scales

Cited by 135 publications

References 48 publications

Long‐term community change: bryophytes are more responsive than vascular plants to nitrogen deposition and warming

Long‐term community change: bryophytes are more responsive than vascular plants to nitrogen deposition and warming

Lifting the veil: richness measurements fail to detect systematic biodiversity change over three decades

Observer and relocation errors matter in resurveys of historical vegetation plots

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