The calcareous riddle: Why are there so many calciphilous species in the Central European flora?

Ewald, Jörg

doi:10.1007/bf02803244

Cited by 208 publications

(146 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…The creation of young calcareous soils at the expense of mature acid soils through periglacial processes of denudation, solifluction and sedimentation of löss may have temporarily favoured evolution of calciphilous species (Ewald 2003), but acid soils and mineral-poor wetlands have probably prevailed in the boreal zone for long time periods. During that shift in habitat conditions, nutrient availability seemed to have increased, which may have been a beneficial factor to bryophyte evolution.…”

Section: Relationships With Plant and Soil Nutrientsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Changes in nutrient availability from calcareous to acid wetland habitats with closely related brown moss species: increase instead of decrease in N and P

Kooijman

Hedenäs

2009

Plant Soil

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To test whether shifts in nutrient availability from calcareous to mineral-poor habitats could be a driving force in the evolution of seven closely related wetland brown mosses, we measured soil and vascular plant nutrients and conducted a laboratory incubation experiment with Swedish and some Dutch samples, in which net N and P-mineralization, respiration and microbial characteristics were measured. In spite of high respiration and microbial N, net N-mineralization appeared to be low for the calcareous Palustriella falcata and Scorpidium spp. Net Nmineralization significantly increased (and respiration and microbial N decreased) for the mineral-poor Sarmentypnum exannulatum, Straminergon stramineum and Warnstorfia fluitans, probably due to a decrease in microbial N-demand. Even though values were mainly negative, net P-mineralization showed a similar increase from calcareous to mineral-poor fens, probably due to lower precipitation of calcium phosphate. The calcareous habitat of the early wetland mosses may thus have been nutrient-poor instead of nutrient-rich. Adaptation to mineral-poor habitats, probably driven by expansion of mineral-poor wetlands when the boreal zone became colder and wetter, may have been associated with higher availability of ammonium and phosphate. However, this may have stimulated Sphagnum more than brown mosses, which may have been restricted to particular niches with perhaps some nitrification.

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Section: Relationships With Plant and Soil Nutrientsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Changes in nutrient availability from calcareous to acid wetland habitats with closely related brown moss species: increase instead of decrease in N and P

Kooijman

Hedenäs

2009

Plant Soil

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“…On the one hand, biotic interactions such as facilitation could locally lead to a higher species number than the harshness of the environment would forecast (Callaway et al 2002). On the other hand, communities on siliceous soils could harbour fewer species than the environment would allow since, in Central Europe, the pool of species able to colonise acid soils is smaller than that for calcareous soils (Chytry´et al 2003;Ewald 2003).…”

Section: Two-factor Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Alpine vascular plant species richness: the importance of daily maximum temperature and pH

Vonlanthen

Kammer

Eugster³

et al. 2006

Plant Ecol

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Species richness in the alpine zone varies dramatically when communities are compared. We explored (i) which stress and disturbance factors were highly correlated with species richness, (ii) whether the intermediate stress hypothesis (ISH) and the intermediate disturbance hypothesis (IDH) can be applied to alpine ecosystems, and (iii) whether standing crop can be used as an easily measurable surrogate for causal factors determining species richness in the alpine zone. Species numbers and standing crop were determined in 14 alpine plant communities in the Swiss Alps. To quantify the stress and disturbance factors in each community, air temperature, relative air humidity, wind speed, global radiation, UV-B radiation, length of the growing season, soil suction, pH, main soil nutrients, waterlogging, soil movement, number of avalanches, level of denudation, winter dieback, herbivory, wind damage, and days with frost were measured or observed. The present study revealed that 82% of the variance in vascular species richness among sites could be explained by just two abiotic factors, daily maximum temperature and soil pH. Daily maximum temperature and pH affect species richness both directly and via their effects on other environmental variables. Some stress and disturbance factors were related to species richness in a monotonic way, others in an unimodal way. Monotonic relationships suggest that the harsher the environment is, the fewer species can survive in such habitats. In cases of unimodal relationships (ISH and IDH) species richness decreases at both ends of the gradients due to the harsh environment and/or the interaction of other environmental factors. Competition and disturbance seemed only to play a secondary role in the form of fine-tuning species richness in specific communities. Thus, we concluded that neither the ISH nor the IDH can be considered useful conceptual models for the alpine zone. Furthermore, we found that standing crop can be used as an easily measurable surrogate for causal factors determining species richness in the alpine zone, even though there is no direct causality.

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“…Major environmental factors, that have caused long-term changes in various types of vegetation, have been traced from the floristic composition of historical and recent data sets in forest vegetation (Wittig et al 1985;Hédl 2004), meadows (Knollová 2004;Bennie et al 2006) and weeds (Ejrnaes et al 2003;Lososová et al 2004). EIV can also be used to research appropriate management techniques (Decocq et al 2004) or for interpretation of patterns of species diversity (Cornwell & Grubb 2003;Ewald 2003a). Large database data sets have recently been subjected to such analyses (e. g., Wohlgemuth & Gigon 2003), as well as to calibrations using direct environmental measurements (Ertsen et al 1998).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The influence of sample plot size on evaluations with Ellenberg indicator values

Otýpková

2009

Biologia

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The effect of plot size was tested on heterogeneous and homogeneous data sets that were obtained by sampling grassland and forest vegetation on plots differing in size. Mean EIV for relevés revealed no differences among data sets from various plot sizes or between homogeneous and heterogeneous data sets. This is probably due to a similar indicator value for species newly occurring in plots with increasing plot size. Using EIV is thus a robust method even for data sets associated with wide range of plot sizes.

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The calcareous riddle: Why are there so many calciphilous species in the Central European flora?

Cited by 208 publications

References 11 publications

Changes in nutrient availability from calcareous to acid wetland habitats with closely related brown moss species: increase instead of decrease in N and P

Changes in nutrient availability from calcareous to acid wetland habitats with closely related brown moss species: increase instead of decrease in N and P

Alpine vascular plant species richness: the importance of daily maximum temperature and pH

The influence of sample plot size on evaluations with Ellenberg indicator values

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