Brunet, Jörg
- Southern Swedish Forest Research Centre, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Abstract
Species turnover is ubiquitous. However, it remains unknown whether certain types of species are consistently gained or lost across different habitats. Here, we analysed the trajectories of 1827 plant species over time intervals of up to 78 years at 141 sites across mountain summits, forests, and lowland grasslands in Europe. We found, albeit with relatively small effect sizes, displacements of smaller- by larger-ranged species across habitats. Communities shifted in parallel towards more nutrient-demanding species, with species from nutrient-rich habitats having larger ranges. Because these species are typically strong competitors, declines of smaller-ranged species could reflect not only abiotic drivers of global change, but also biotic pressure from increased competition. The ubiquitous component of turnover based on species range size we found here may partially reconcile findings of no net loss in local diversity with global species loss, and link community-scale turnover to macroecological processes such as biotic homogenisation.
Keywords
alpine; biodiversity change; forest; forestREplot; GLORIA; grassland; homogenization; resurvey; winner and loser species
Published in
Ecology Letters
2022, volume: 25, number: 2
Publisher: WILEY
SLU Authors
Global goals (SDG)
UKÄ Subject classification
Ecology
Publication identifier
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.13937
Permanent link to this page (URI)
https://res.slu.se/id/publ/114911