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Functional diversity of different vegetation types does not respond homogeneously to change over time after conservation translocation from a rural landscape to an urbanized one.

Authors :
Świerszcz, Sebastian
Nowak, Arkadiusz
Kojs, Paweł
Nowak, Sylwia
Nobis, Marcin
Source :
Urban Forestry & Urban Greening; May2019, Vol. 41, p323-332, 10p
Publication Year :
2019

Abstract

• Functional diversity of meadows changes at most after translocation from rural areas to the city. •.The most essential changes were observed for life strategies, seed dispersal and response to anthropogenic pressure. •.The city microclimate promotes earlier flowering onset and a shorter blooming period on translocated vegetation. • The translocation can effectively support landscape reclamation and promote biodiversity in degraded ecosystems. The anthropogenic impact on natural environments and the loss of species diversity along with changes in functional diversity call for effective steps to ensure habitat conservation. The functional diversity in particular has suffered in recent decades due to investment and land use changes. The translocation of whole turfs of certain vegetation plots prior to being destroyed is one possible solution for maintaining habitat functional diversity. In the presented paper, we analyse the functional changes in adaptive, regeneration and urbanity plant traits for meadow, heath and fen that were translocated from a rural site to a post-industrial site in a city. After five years of monitoring, we checked the changes in the functional diversity (FD) and community weighted means with the adoption of nine traits and Rao's quadratic entropy for calculating the FD and the relative treatment effect (RTE) to evaluate the influence of time. We found that the overall FD of that trait set was not significantly changed. The FD of the seed dispersal type significantly increased. The means of autochoric, anemochoric and hemerochoric species decreased, and nautochoric and zoochoric species increased significantly, with respect to the frequency and abundance. The flowering season was shorter for meadows and heaths with earlier start and termination. The most important factors of the FD changes are probably linked to the microclimate of the urbanized area and the cessation of grazing. Our study demonstrated that translocation of vegetation plots from rural to urbanized environments can be a fairly effective measure in landscape shaping and in promoting biodiversity in urban ecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
16188667
Volume :
41
Database :
Supplemental Index
Journal :
Urban Forestry & Urban Greening
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
136523251
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ufug.2019.05.001