IngentaConnect The influence of agricultural land-use intensity on bryophyte spe...

Authors: Zechmeister H.G.¹; Moser D.²

Source: Biodiversity and Conservation, Volume 10, Number 10, October 2001 , pp. 1609-1625(17)

Publisher: Springer

Abstract:

This study is a quantitative approach to the estimation of bryophyte species richness in relation to land-use intensity at three spatial scales in highly cultivated areas. A total of 460 randomly selected habitats and their various substrates within 29 study sites were investigated with regard to their land-use intensity and their bryophyte species richness in an agricultural region of eastern Austria. On bare soils (substrate-scale), low but regular disturbance increases bryophyte diversity in comparison to lower land-use intensity. However, more frequent disturbance (e.g. ploughing more than two times a year) dramatically reduces species richness at these sites, with more than 50% of these sites showing no bryophytes. The production of reproductive units (sporophytes and vegetative units) is highest at an intermediate disturbance regime. On the habitat, as well as on the landscape-scale, there is a significant increase in total bryophyte species number as well as in the number of threatened species with decreasing land-use intensity. This is mainly due to habitat and structural diversity, which increases with decreasing land-use intensity. There are significant correlations between landuse intensity, structural diversity and species richness at the habitat as well as on the landscape scale.

Keywords: bryophytes; habitat diversity; habitat-scale; landscape-scale; substrate-scale; threatened bryophytes

Language: English

Document Type: Regular paper

Affiliations: 1: Division of Conservation Biology, Vegetation and Landscape Ecology, Institute of Ecology and Conservation Biology, University of Vienna, Althanstraße 14, A-1091 Vienna, Austria (harald.zechmeister@univie.ac.at) 2: Division of Conservation Biology, Vegetation and Landscape Ecology, Institute of Ecology and Conservation Biology, University of Vienna, Althanstraße 14, A-1091 Vienna, Austria

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The influence of agricultural land-use intensity on bryophyte species richness