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Research article2017

Dramatisk nedgång i antalet lokaler för slåttergubbe – resultat från floraväkteri i tre sydsvenska provinser

Sundberg, Sebastian

Abstract

The results of the Flora Guardians' monitoring of Arnica Montana are presented from mainly three provinces in southern Sweden: Skåne (Scania), Blekinge and Bohuslän. Arnica Montana has been nationally red listed, according to the IUCN criteria, only since 2010 (Near Threatened), and since 2015 in the category Vulnerable according to the A-criterion (rapid population decline; approximately 45% during 100 years). The species is still rather common in acidic, dry to mesic semi-natural grasslands in the south. Because the Flora Guardians monitor mainly populations of threatened species (IUCN-categories Vulnerable, Endangered and Critically Endangered) there are still rather few visits to each of the Arnica Montana sites: half of the 1054 registered sites in the three provinces have been revisited, mainly during the years 2014 and 2015, which thus enables a quantification of changes in the number of sites. The species was absent from 56% of the revisited sites in the three provinces, indicating a rapid and strong decline over the past 20 years, especially during the last 10 years. The median number of shoots per site was 46, while the largest population, a nature reserve in the province of Halland, had 300 000 shoots in 2015. In some cases, the flora guardians were unable to record the species because of heavy grazing, leading to a "false extinction". The decline seems to have been stronger in the three analysed provinces compared to the situation in Halland and Västergötland, but nevertheless exceeds the decline in the number of semi-natural grasslands overall. Mainly small populations seem to have vanished, indicating that small, marginal grasslands have been abandoned more than large sites.

Published in

Svensk Botanisk Tidskrift
2017, volume: 111, number: 3-4, pages: 187-191

SLU Authors

Associated SLU-program

Biodiversity

UKÄ Subject classification

Other Biological Topics
Botany
Ecology

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/83182