Search

Scaling-up ecological restoration demands the involvement of private sector actors. Experience regarding science-based habitat restoration programs in the sector should be made available to support further joint projects. In our case, hierarchical restoration prioritization was applied to select best target for habitat reconstruction at a Hungarian industrial area. Multiple potential natural vegetation model, a novel approach, supported restoration prioritization satisfying both ecological (sustainability and nature conservation value) and other needs (feasibility, rapid green surface, amenity, and education value). The target that met all priorities was the open steppe forest that has a mosaic arrangement with open and closed sand steppes. The potential area of this xero-thermophile oak wood is expected to expand in Hungary with climate change, therefore the selected target has a likelihood of long-term sustainability, if established. A matrix of sand steppes was created first at the factory area in 2014-2015, and tree and shrub saplings were planted in this matrix. The seeding induced rapid changes in vegetation composition: the second year samples became close to reference sand steppes in the principal component analysis ordination space. Tree and shrub survival was species dependent, reaching a maximum of 52 and 73% for tree and shrub species, respectively. One tree and 2 shrub species did not survive at all. Altogether 53 of 107 target species have established. So far, restored vegetation development confirmed the suitability of the applied hierarchical prioritization framework at factory scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A central issue of community ecology is finding rules that explain the composition and abundance of coexisting species. Nowadays two main processes, environmental filtering and limiting similarity, are thought to play the main roles in structuring communities. Their relative importance under different environmental conditions, however, is still not properly clarified., We studied the strength and the effect of environmental filtering (causing convergence) and limiting similarity (causing divergence) in 137 sample plots along an extremely long environmental gradient ranging from open sand grasslands to highly productive marshes, using a trait-based approach. The main environmental gradient (i.e. productivity) was characterized by the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, an indicator of above-ground live biomass. Cover of the plant species was estimated visually. Values of 11 plant traits were collected from field measurements and data bases. Mean and dispersion of the trait values of the plots were quantified by community-weighted means and Rao's quadratic entropy. Trait convergence and divergence were tested by randomization tests, followed by the study of changes in effect size along the productivity gradient by fitting generalized additive mixed models ( GAMM)., For vegetative traits we found mainly convergence, indicating the filtering effect of environmental constraints, while traits related to regeneration showed divergence., The strength of convergence in vegetative traits generally decreased as productivity grew, indicating that while under harsh conditions environmental constraints strongly limit the possible trait values, under more benign conditions various water and nutrient use strategies are adaptable. At high productivity, the strength of divergence in regenerative traits decreased. Since the larger diversity of vegetative traits found here reduces competition, the importance of diverse reproductive strategy is probably lower., Synthesis. Our results partly support the stress-dominance hypothesis, but reveal that assembly rules are more complex. The relative importance of environmental filtering and limiting similarity depends on the trait and on the environmental conditions of the habitat. Traits related to resource use are generally limited by environmental filtering, and this restriction is weakening as conditions become more favourable, while traits related to regeneration are constrained by limiting similarity and are more diverse under harsh conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Plant diversities of quasi natural and moderately managed sites were compared in six major Pannonian habitat complexes. • Novel bootstrap statistics is useful for comparison of diversities of heterogeneous sites. • Gamma diversity (species richness) of specialist species is the most sensitive diversity indicator. • The diversity of loess and dolomite forest steppe complexes and freshwater marshlands is significantly lower in managed sites. • Reduced diversity is coupled with habitat loss. Habitat complexes exhibit varying vulnerability to human land use and thus have different impacts on biodiversity. In this study, we analyzed the effect of moderate land use on the plant species diversity in six characteristic Pannonian habitat complexes: forest steppe complex on sand, on dolomite, and on loess, as well as alkaline habitat complex, freshwater marsh complex, and zonal broadleaf colline forest. We chose two regions for each complex, and in each region, we selected a 2 × 2 km "natural" study site in a mostly protected area, and a moderately used "managed" site of the same size. We compared the alpha, beta, and gamma diversities of the total and the specialist species pools of the natural-managed site pairs by applying stratified random sampling and novel bootstrap statistics. The gamma diversity of the specialist species pool was found to be the most sensitive indicator of naturalness. It was higher in the natural sites of the loess and dolomite forest steppe and the freshwater marshland complexes, while there were no significant diversity differences in the other complexes. The diversity comparisons showed a consistent pattern: there were either no significant diversity differences in any of the natural-managed pairs, or there were significant differences in the gamma diversities of the specialist species pool in both the natural-managed pairs. We concluded that the same differences in naturalness may represent different sensitivities to human management as characterized by differences in diversity measures. Three habitat complexes, the loess and dolomite forest steppe and the freshwater marshland, require more focused nature protection efforts in order to preserve the habitat diversity, especially in maintaining the remnants of the natural woody patches and the most inundated habitats of the marshlands. In the case of the other studied complexes, moderate human land use can be harmonized by nature protection goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]