Components of plant diversity as ecological indicators reflecting the effects of conservation management and degradation in different climatic conditions
Bibliographic Data
Additive partitioning of species diversity is a valuable approach for quantifying the spatial patterns of biodiversity sampled in hierarchically scaled studies. This approach may provide key insights into vegetation community restoration following terrestrial ecosystems degradation in different climatic conditions. The scale‐dependence of plant diversity in relation to different plant functional groups (e.g., herbaceous and woody) is still little understood. This research aims to investigate the influence of management options (protected vs. non‐protected) and climatic conditions (semiarid vs. Mediterranean) on different components of diversity in both herbaceous and woody species derived from local and regional scales (i.e., plot and site, respectively). In the studied areas, a total of 64 plots (1000 m 2 ) at local scale and 128 micro‐plots (1 m 2 ) among 16 sites at regional scale were selected for sampling the woody and herbaceous species data, respectively, by using a hierarchical sampling design. Diversity components of local ( α 1, β 1) and regional ( α 2, β 2) scales were extracted according to additive partitioning method. Differences in diversity component ( α 1, α 21, β 1 and β 2) and floristic composition between management options and climatic conditions were evaluated using GLMM and DCA. The results indicate that all components of total species (both herbaceous and woody) diversity ( α 1, α 2, β 1 and β 2) were significantly influenced by management options ( p β 2, with greater values in the Mediterranean compared to semi‐arid areas. Moreover, the separate analysis of herbaceous and woody species indicated that management options have a greater significant effect on different diversity components compared to the climatic condition. Detrended correspondence analysis showed that floristic variations along the axes are strongly affected by management in both climatic conditions. This indicates that protection measures mostly increased plant species diversity at the local and regional scales, which is independent of the climatic condition
Alpha diversity · Arid · Beta diversity · Biodiversity · Biology · Ecosystem · Gamma diversity · Geography · Herbaceous plant · Mediterranean climate · Plant community · Shrubland · Spatial ecology · Species diversity · Species evenness · Species richness · Woody plant · Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies · Environmental Science · Land Use and Ecosystem Services · Species Distribution and Climate Change · Ecology
| Citations per year | 0.67 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2023 - 2023 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |