Long-lasting imprint of former glassworks on vegetation pattern in an extremely species-rich grassland: a battle of species pools on mesic soils
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2017 |
| Type | Article in Periodical |
| Magazine / Source | Ecosystems |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Web | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10021-017-0107-2 |
| Doi | http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10021-017-0107-2 |
| Field | Ecology |
| Keywords | biodiversity; Anthropocene; archaeology; phosphorus; species richness; productivity; N:P biomass ratio; soil magnetism; moisture; restoration |
| Attached files | |
| Description | In the White Carpathian Mts (Central- Eastern Europe), a mosaic of hyper-species-rich and species-rich patches have developed in a regularly mown dry grassland in the area of a glassworks abandoned in the eighteenth century. We tested whether and how anthropogenically changed soils affected the distribution of extraordinary species richness. Archaeological features, especially furnaces and waste deposits, showed a higher pH, higher soil concentrations of exchangeable phosphorus, manganese, lead and calcium, and higher productivity than surrounding grassland that showed higher iron and sodium concentrations in the soil, higher N:P ratio in the biomass and higher species richness. Moisture was uniformly lower in soils onarchaeological features, where non-trivially a more ‘mesic’ vegetation interms of European habitat classification occurred. Plant compositional variation was best explained by water extractable phosphorus. Surrounding phosphorus-poorer grasslands still contain the ancient species pool whose extraordinary size determines the exceptional species richness of grasslands in the study region. Its maintenance or restoration demands a persistent phosphorus deficiency. |
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