Using incomplete floristic monitoring data from habitat mapping programmes to detect species trends
Aim: The loss of biodiversity has raised serious concerns about the entailing losses of ecosystem services. Here, we explore the potential of repeated habitat mapping data to identify floristic changes over time. Using one German federal state as a case study, we assessed floristic changes between the 1980s and 2010s. These habitat data have great potential for analysis because of their high spatial coverage while also posing methodological challenges such as incomplete observation data. We developed a modelling approach that accounts for incomplete observations and explored the ability to detect temporal trends. Location: The Federal State of Schleswig-Holstein (Germany) Methods: We compiled plant species lists from the earliest (1980s) and most recent (2010s) habitat mapping survey and aligned differing habitat definitions across map- ping campaigns. A total of 5,503 mapped polygons, each with a list of species records, intersected the two surveys. We accounted for underrecorded species by assigning occurrence probabilities, based on species co-occurrence information across all surveys, using Beals' index and tested the robustness of this approach by simulation experiments. For those species with significant increases and decreases in occurrence probability, we linked these trends to the species' functional characteristics. Results: We found a systematic loss of species that are moderately threatened. Species that indicate low nitrogen supply and high soil moisture declined, suggesting a shift towards a more eutrophic and drier landscape. Importantly, assessing specific plant traits associated with losses, we also detected a decrease in species with reddish and blueish flowers and species providing nectar, pointing to a decrease of insect-pollinated taxa.
2020-09-02 14:44:37 UTC
final
Plant Data
Helge Bruelheide, Prof.
helge.bruelheide@idiv.de
Florian Jansen, Prof. Dr.
florian.jansen@uni-rostock.de
Silke Lütt
silke.luett@llur.landsh.de
Matthias Jugelt
matthias.jugelt@llur.landsh.de
Volker Grescho
volker.grescho@idiv.de
Jürgen Dengler, Prof. Dr.
juergen.dengler@uni-bayreuth.de
Karsten Wesche, Prof. Dr.
karsten.wesche@senckenberg.de
Simon Kellner
Simon.Kellner@llur.landsh.de
Ute Jandt, Dr.
ute.jandt@botanik.uni-halle.de
Martin Ludwig
Martin.Ludwig@BfN.de
Markus Bernhard-Römermann, Dr.
markus.bernhardt@uni-jena.de
David Eichenberg, Dr.
david.eichenberg@idiv.de
Diana Bowler, Dr.
diana.bowler@nina.no
Diversity and Distributions
2020-03-24
accepted