Formalized typology of plant-diversity patterns in European salt-affected grasslands
project postponed
Present-day vegetation science contributes considerably to comprehensive, pan-European classifications of plant communities and standardised, transnational vegetation analyses (Chytrý et al. 2016), which is made possible by the increasing availability of vegetation-plot data in electronic databases (e.g. EVA). The resulting refined definitions and descriptions of vegetation types facilitate the identification of geographic patterns, main driving factors of species composition (e.g. Rodríguez-Rojo et al. 2017; Willner et al. 2017, 2019; Marcenò et al. 2018; Landucci et al. 2019), and non-native plant invasions (e.g. Chytrý et al. 2008; Wagner et al. 2017). Vegetation classification studies have also played a major role in the development of European habitat typologies (e.g. Rodwell et al. 2018; Biurrun et al. 2019; Schaminée et al. 2019) and their quality assessment (e.g. Janssen et al. 2016; Tsiripidis et al. 2018), an important basis for decision-making processes in nature conservation. The nowadays increased availability of high-quality, broad-scaled datasets enables investigations on the effect of non-native species on plant-diversity, abiotic habitat characteristics and habitat functionality on pan-European or even global scale.
Although numerous descriptions and classifications of salt-affected grasslands at the local and few on transnational levels have been published (e.g. Eliáš Jr et al. 2012; Stevanović et al. 2016; Pätsch et al. 2019b), a formalized classification at the continental scale has been missing. In our study we aim to explore macro-ecological plant-community patterns of inland and coastal salt-affected grasslands and their levels of invasions at the European scale. Specifically, I will:
Lab: Vegetation Science Group, Milan Chytrý, Masaryk University
Cooperation partner: Zuzana Dítě, Daniel Dítě, Erwin Bergmeier, Ilona Knollova, John Janssen, Corrado Marcenò, Daniel Sánchez-Mata, Joop Schaminée,Viktoria Wagner, Wolfgang Willner |