Selection against ruderals in Danish grasslands over an eight-year period  

TY - JOUR

T1 - Selection against ruderals in Danish grasslands over an eight-year period  

AU - Damgaard, Christian

PY - 2022/12

Y1 - 2022/12

N2 - In order to investigate what community selection forces are operating on Grime's CSR strategies in different semi-natural grassland habitats that were not subjected to successional processes, a time-series analysis of 2946 Danish grassland plots from an eight-year period with pin-point plant cover data was conducted. Grime's CSR strategies were used for grouping plant species into functional types, which were then treated as dependent variables in a time-series analysis. Across four grassland habitat types, there was significant selection against ruderal plant species during the eight-year period. Furthermore, the monitoring data indicated that the decreasing cover of ruderals may, in part be, due to reduced grazing pressure of large herbivores. As a consequence of the findings in this study and others, it may be suggested that increased disturbance, e.g. by large herbivores, is a suitable management strategies for grassland habitats.

AB - In order to investigate what community selection forces are operating on Grime's CSR strategies in different semi-natural grassland habitats that were not subjected to successional processes, a time-series analysis of 2946 Danish grassland plots from an eight-year period with pin-point plant cover data was conducted. Grime's CSR strategies were used for grouping plant species into functional types, which were then treated as dependent variables in a time-series analysis. Across four grassland habitat types, there was significant selection against ruderal plant species during the eight-year period. Furthermore, the monitoring data indicated that the decreasing cover of ruderals may, in part be, due to reduced grazing pressure of large herbivores. As a consequence of the findings in this study and others, it may be suggested that increased disturbance, e.g. by large herbivores, is a suitable management strategies for grassland habitats.

KW - Dirichlet - multinomial distribution

KW - Grime CSR strategies

KW - Plant trait selection

KW - STAN

KW - hierarchical Bayesian models

KW - multi-species joint cover distribution

KW - multi-species pin-point cover data

KW - plant functional types

U2 - 10.1016/j.ecoinf.2022.101864

DO - 10.1016/j.ecoinf.2022.101864

M3 - Journal article

SN - 1574-9541

VL - 72

JO - Ecological Informatics

JF - Ecological Informatics

M1 - 101864

ER -