Decline in large-seeded species in Danish grasslands over an eight-year period  

TY - JOUR

T1 - Decline in large-seeded species in Danish grasslands over an eight-year period  

AU - Damgaard, Christian

PY - 2024/1

Y1 - 2024/1

N2 - To demonstrate possible community selection on seed size, a time-series analysis of cover data from 236 Danish grassland sites was performed in a linear model. Across four grassland habitat types and during an eight-year period, there was a significant decline in large-seeded species. Therefore, it was not possible to corroborate the initial hypothesis that a historical increase in nitrogen deposition and the observed vegetation changes towards taller and more competitive plant species favored plant species with large seeds. In the analysis, the continuous seed size variable was used to group plant species into functional types. This method was chosen in order to account for the sampling process of the cover data and is in contrast to most other analyses of trait selection, where the community weighted mean of the traits is used as the dependent variable.

AB - To demonstrate possible community selection on seed size, a time-series analysis of cover data from 236 Danish grassland sites was performed in a linear model. Across four grassland habitat types and during an eight-year period, there was a significant decline in large-seeded species. Therefore, it was not possible to corroborate the initial hypothesis that a historical increase in nitrogen deposition and the observed vegetation changes towards taller and more competitive plant species favored plant species with large seeds. In the analysis, the continuous seed size variable was used to group plant species into functional types. This method was chosen in order to account for the sampling process of the cover data and is in contrast to most other analyses of trait selection, where the community weighted mean of the traits is used as the dependent variable.

KW - Dirichlet - multinomial distribution

KW - Hierarchical Bayesian models

KW - Multi-species joint cover distribution

KW - Pin-point cover data

KW - Plant functional types

KW - Plant trait selection

KW - STAN

KW - Seed mass

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85181664058&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.flora.2023.152446

DO - 10.1016/j.flora.2023.152446

M3 - Journal article

SN - 0367-2530

VL - 310

JO - Flora

JF - Flora

M1 - 152446

ER -