Forest floor vegetation response to nitrogen deposition in Europe

Bibliographische Detailangaben
Veröffentlicht in:	Global change biology. - 1999. - 20(2014), 2 vom: 09. Feb., Seite 429-40
1. Verfasser:	Dirnböck, Thomas (VerfasserIn)
Weitere Verfasser:	Grandin, Ulf, Bernhardt-Römermann, Markus, Beudert, Burkhardt, Canullo, Roberto, Forsius, Martin, Grabner, Maria-Theresia, Holmberg, Maria, Kleemola, Sirpa, Lundin, Lars, Mirtl, Michael, Neumann, Markus, Pompei, Enrico, Salemaa, Maija, Starlinger, Franz, Staszewski, Tomasz, Uziębło, Aldona Katarzyna
Format:	Online-Aufsatz
Sprache:	English
Veröffentlicht:	2014
Zugriff auf das übergeordnete Werk:	Global change biology
Schlagworte:	Journal Article Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't air pollution critical load eutrophication long-term ecological research monitoring plant species diversity Nitrogen N762921K75

Beschreibung
Zusammenfassung:	© 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Chronic nitrogen (N) deposition is a threat to biodiversity that results from the eutrophication of ecosystems. We studied long-term monitoring data from 28 forest sites with a total of 1,335 permanent forest floor vegetation plots from northern Fennoscandia to southern Italy to analyse temporal trends in vascular plant species cover and diversity. We found that the cover of plant species which prefer nutrient-poor soils (oligotrophic species) decreased the more the measured N deposition exceeded the empirical critical load (CL) for eutrophication effects (P = 0.002). Although species preferring nutrient-rich sites (eutrophic species) did not experience a significantly increase in cover (P = 0.440), in comparison to oligotrophic species they had a marginally higher proportion among new occurring species (P = 0.091). The observed gradual replacement of oligotrophic species by eutrophic species as a response to N deposition seems to be a general pattern, as it was consistent on the European scale. Contrary to species cover changes, neither the decrease in species richness nor of homogeneity correlated with nitrogen CL exceedance (ExCLemp N). We assume that the lack of diversity changes resulted from the restricted time period of our observations. Although existing habitat-specific empirical CL still hold some uncertainty, we exemplify that they are useful indicators for the sensitivity of forest floor vegetation to N deposition
Beschreibung:	Date Completed 10.09.2014 Date Revised 08.01.2014 published: Print-Electronic Citation Status MEDLINE
ISSN:	1365-2486
DOI:	10.1111/gcb.12440