Publication details

Long-lasting imprint of former glassworks on vegetation pattern in an extremely species-rich grassland: a battle of species pools on mesic soils

Authors

HÁJEK Michal DRESLER Petr HÁJKOVÁ Petra HETTENBERGEROVÁ Eva MILO Peter PLESKOVÁ Zuzana PAVONIČ Michal

Year of publication 2017
Type Article in Periodical
Magazine / Source Ecosystems
MU Faculty or unit

Faculty of Science

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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