Drivers of temporal changes in temperate forest plant diversity vary across spatial scales.

ABSTRACT: Global biodiversity is affected by numerous environmental drivers. Yet, the extent to which global environmental changes contribute to changes in local diversity is poorly understood. We investigated biodiversity changes in a meta-analysis of 39 resurvey studies in European temperate forests (3988 vegetation records in total, 17-75 years between the two surveys) by assessing the importance of (i) coarse-resolution (i.e., among sites) vs. fine-resolution (i.e., within sites) environmental differences and (ii) changing environmental conditions between surveys. Our results clarify the mechanisms underlying the direction and magnitude of local-scale biodiversity changes. While not detecting any net local diversity loss, we observed considerable among-site variation, partly explained by tempora

SUBMITTER: Bernhardt-Romermann M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6136642 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature