Plue, Jan and Van Calster, Hans and Auestad, Inger and Bekker, Renee M. and Bruun, Hans Henrik and Chevalier, Richard and Decocq, Guillaume and Grandin, Ulf and Hermy, Martin and Jacquemyn, Hans and Jakobsson, Anna and Jankowska-Blaszczuk, Malgorzata and Kalamees, Rein and Koch, Marcus A. and Marrs, Rob H. and Marteinsdottir, Bryndis and Milberg, Per and Maren, Inger E. and Pakeman, Robin J. and Phoenix, Gareth K. and Thompson, Ken and Vandvik, Vigdis and Wagner, Markus and Auffret, Alistair
(2021).
Buffering effects of soil seed banks on plant community composition in response to land use and climate.
Global Ecology and Biogeography. 30
, 128-139
[Research article]
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Abstract
Aim Climate and land use are key determinants of biodiversity, with past and ongoing changes posing serious threats to global ecosystems. Unlike most other organism groups, plant species can possess dormant life-history stages such as soil seed banks, which may help plant communities to resist or at least postpone the detrimental impact of global changes. This study investigates the potential for soil seed banks to achieve this.Location Europe.Time period 1978-2014.Major taxa studied Flowering plants.Methods Using a space-for-time/warming approach, we study plant species richness and composition in the herb layer and the soil seed bank in 2,796 community plots from 54 datasets in managed grasslands, forests and intermediate, successional habitats across a climate gradient.Results Soil seed banks held more species than the herb layer, being compositionally similar across habitats. Species richness was lower in forests and successional habitats compared to grasslands, with annual temperature range more important than mean annual temperature for determining richness. Climate and land-use effects were generally less pronounced when plant community richness included seed bank species richness, while there was no clear effect of land use and climate on compositional similarity between the seed bank and the herb layer.Main conclusions High seed bank diversity and compositional similarity between the herb layer and seed bank plant communities may provide a potentially important functional buffer against the impact of ongoing environmental changes on plant communities. This capacity could, however, be threatened by climate warming. Dormant life-history stages can therefore be important sources of diversity in changing environments, potentially underpinning already observed time-lags in plant community responses to global change. However, as soil seed banks themselves appear, albeit less, vulnerable to the same changes, their potential to buffer change can only be temporary, and major community shifts may still be expected.
Authors/Creators: | Plue, Jan and Van Calster, Hans and Auestad, Inger and Bekker, Renee M. and Bruun, Hans Henrik and Chevalier, Richard and Decocq, Guillaume and Grandin, Ulf and Hermy, Martin and Jacquemyn, Hans and Jakobsson, Anna and Jankowska-Blaszczuk, Malgorzata and Kalamees, Rein and Koch, Marcus A. and Marrs, Rob H. and Marteinsdottir, Bryndis and Milberg, Per and Maren, Inger E. and Pakeman, Robin J. and Phoenix, Gareth K. and Thompson, Ken and Vandvik, Vigdis and Wagner, Markus and Auffret, Alistair | ||||||
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Title: | Buffering effects of soil seed banks on plant community composition in response to land use and climate | ||||||
Series Name/Journal: | Global Ecology and Biogeography | ||||||
Year of publishing : | 2021 | ||||||
Volume: | 30 | ||||||
Page range: | 128-139 | ||||||
Number of Pages: | 12 | ||||||
Publisher: | WILEY | ||||||
ISSN: | 1466-822X | ||||||
Language: | English | ||||||
Publication Type: | Research article | ||||||
Article category: | Scientific peer reviewed | ||||||
Version: | Published version | ||||||
Copyright: | Creative Commons: Attribution 4.0 | ||||||
Full Text Status: | Public | ||||||
Subjects: | (A) Swedish standard research categories 2011 > 1 Natural sciences > 106 Biological Sciences (Medical to be 3 and Agricultural to be 4) > Ecology | ||||||
Keywords: | climate change, Europe, forest, grassland, land‐use change, plant biodiversity, soil seed bank | ||||||
URN:NBN: | urn:nbn:se:slu:epsilon-p-109000 | ||||||
Permanent URL: | http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:slu:epsilon-p-109000 | ||||||
Additional ID: |
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ID Code: | 23479 | ||||||
Faculty: | NJ - Fakulteten för naturresurser och jordbruksvetenskap | ||||||
Department: | (NL, NJ) > Dept. of Aquatic Sciences and Assessment (NL, NJ) > Dept. of Ecology (S) > Dept. of Ecology | ||||||
Deposited By: | SLUpub Connector | ||||||
Deposited On: | 12 May 2021 14:23 | ||||||
Metadata Last Modified: | 31 Jul 2021 02:20 |
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