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

Markus Bernhardt-Römermann (1) , Lander Baeten (2) , Dylan Craven (3, 4) , Pieter de Frenne (2) , Radim Hédl (5, 6) , Jonathan Roger Michel Henri Lenoir (7) , Didier Bert (8) , Jorg Brunet (9) , Markéta Chudomelová (5, 10) , Guillaume Decocq (7) , Hartmut Dierschke (11) , Thomas Dirnböck (12) , Inken Dörfler (13) , Thilo Heinken (14) , Martin Hermy (15) , Patrick Hommel (16) , Bogdan Jaroszewicz (17) , Andrzej Keczyński (18) , Daniel L. Kelly (19) , Keith J. Kirby (20) , Martin Kopecký (5) , Martin Macek (5) , František Máliš (21, 22) , Michael Mirtl (12) , Fraser J. G. Mitchell (19) , Tobias Naaf (23) , Miles Newman (19) , George Peterken (24) , Petr Petřík (5) , Wolfgang Schmidt (11) , Tibor Standovár (25) , Zoltán Tóth (25) , Hans Van Calster (26) , Gorik Verstraeten (2) , Jozef Vladovič (27) , Ondřej Vild (5, 10) , Monika Wulf (23, 14) , Kris Verheyen (2)

1 Friedrich-Schiller-Universität = Friedrich Schiller University Jena [Jena, Germany]
2 UGENT - Universiteit Gent = Ghent University
3 iDiv - German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research
4 Institute for Biology
5 CAS - Czech Academy of Sciences [Prague]
6 Palacky University Olomouc
7 UPJV - Université de Picardie Jules Verne
8 BioGeCo - Biodiversité, Gènes & Communautés
9 SLU - Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences = Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet
10 MUNI - Masaryk University [Brno]
11 Georg-August-University = Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
12 Umweltbundesamt GmbH = Environment Agency Austria
13 TUM - Technische Universität Munchen - Technical University Munich - Université Technique de Munich
14 University of Potsdam = Universität Potsdam
15 UCL - Université Catholique de Louvain = Catholic University of Louvain
16 WUR - Wageningen University and Research Centre
17 UW - University of Warsaw
18 Biatowieza National park
19 University of Dublin
20 University of Oxford
21 TUZVO - Technical University in Zvolen
22 Forest Research Institute
23 ZALF - Leibniz-Zentrum für Agrarlandschaftsforschung = Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research
24 Beechwood House
25 ELTE - Eötvös Loránd University
26 INBO - Research Institute for Nature and Forest
27 National Forest Centre - Národné lesnícke centrum [Zvolen]

Global biodiversity is affected by numerous environmental drivers. Yet, the extent to which global environmental changes contribute to changes in local diversity is poorly understood. We investigated biodiversity changes in a meta-analysis of 39 resurvey studies in European temperate forests (3988 vegetation records in total, 17-75 years between the two surveys) by assessing the importance of (i) coarse-resolution (i.e., among sites) vs. fine-resolution (i.e., within sites) environmental differences and (ii) changing environmental conditions between surveys. Our results clarify the mechanisms underlying the direction and magnitude of local-scale biodiversity changes. While not detecting any net local diversity loss, we observed considerable among-site variation, partly explained by temporal changes in light availability (a local driver) and density of large herbivores (a regional driver). Furthermore, strong evidence was found that presurvey levels of nitrogen deposition determined subsequent diversity changes. We conclude that models forecasting future biodiversity changes should consider coarse-resolution environmental changes, account for differences in baseline environmental conditions and for local changes in fine-resolution environmental conditions.

Mots clés: evenness; forest management; forestREplot; game browsing; spatiotemporal resurvey data; species richness; shannon diversity

Mots clés: atmospheric nitrogen deposition

Domaines: Sciences du Vivant [q-bio]

Markus Bernhardt-Römermann, Lander Baeten, Dylan Craven, Pieter de Frenne, Radim Hédl, et al.. Drivers of temporal changes in temperate forest plant diversity vary across spatial scales. Global Change Biology, 2015, 21 (10), pp.3726-3737. ⟨10.1111/gcb.12993⟩. ⟨hal-02641505⟩