Syntaxonomy of the Festuco-Brometea class vegetation of the Azov sea coastal zone

Syntaxonomy of the class Festuco-Brometea in Ukraine has barely been still explored. There are some scattered and local data, mainly within the Forest-Steppe zone, which need to be compiled and critically reviewed. Similarly, the Azov Sea coastal zone, which, despite the considerable diversity of habitats, remains unstudied phytosociologically. We have carried out large-scale comparisons of relevés from the Sea of Azov coastline with data from other regions of Ukraine, Europe, and Russia. In total, 2336 relevés were used for the analysis. For the analysis, Modified TWINSPAN classification was used. Diagnostic species were determined by means of the phi fidelity index. In total, 9 associations and 4 subassociations, belonging to four alliances, were identified and categorised as follows: Artemisio-Kochion prostratae (ruderalized steppes), Artemisio tauricae- Festucion valesiacae (saline steppe vegetation on sites affected by the sea or saline ground water), Stipo lessingianae-Salvion nutantis (forb-bunchgrass steppe vegetation) and Tanaceto millefolii-Galatellion villosae (bunchgrass steppes). The last alliance is proposed as a new one

Ukrainian Plant Trait Database: UkrTrait v. 1.0

Background Considering the growing demand for plant trait data and taking into account the lack of trait data from Eastern Europe, especially from its steppic region, we launched a new Ukrainian Plant Trait Database (UkrTrait v. 1.0) aiming at collecting all the available plant trait data from Ukraine. To facilitate further use of this database, we linked the trait terminology to the TRY Plant Trait Database, Thesaurus of Plant Characteristics (TOP) and Plant Trait Ontology (TO). For taxa names, we provide the crosswalks between the Ukrainian checklist and international sources, i.e. GBIF Backbone Taxonomy, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (World Checklist of Vascular Plants (World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP), World Flora Online (WFO) and Euro+Med PlantBase. We aim to integrate our data into the relevant global (TRY Plant Trait Database) and pan-European (FloraVeg.EU) databases. The current version of the database is freely available at the Zenodo repository and will be updated in the future. New information Until now, plant traits for the Ukrainian flora were scattered across literature, often focusing on single species and written mainly in Ukrainian. Additionally, many traits were in grey literature or remained non-digitised, which rendered them inaccessible to the global scientific community. Addressing this gap, our Ukrainian Plant Trait Database (UkrTrait v. 1.0) represents a significant step forward. We compiled and digitised plant traits from local Ukrainian literature sources. Furthermore, we performed our own field and laboratory measurements of various plant traits that were not previously available in literature. In the current version of the UkrTrait, we focus on vascular plant species that are absent from the other European trait databases, with emphasis on species that are representative for the steppe vegetation. Traits assembled from literature include life span (annuals, biennials, perennials), plant height, flowering period (flowering months), life form (by Raunkiaer), plant growth form and others. Our own measured traits include seed mass, seed shape, leaf area, leaf nitrogen concentration and leaf phosphorus concentration. The current version, i.e. UkrTrait v. 1.0, comprises digitised literature data of 287,948 records of 75 traits for 6,198 taxa and our own trait measurements of 2,390 records of 12 traits for 388 taxa

On the trails of Josias Braun-Blanquet II : first results from the 12th EDGG Field Workshop studying the dry grasslands of the inneralpine dry valleys of Switzerland

The 12th EDGG Field Workshop took place from 11 to 19 May 2019, organised by the Vegetation Ecology Group of the Institute of Natural Resource Sciences (IUNR) of the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW). Like in the 11th Field Workshop in Austria, the main target was the "Inneralpine Trockenvegetation" (Festuco-Brometea and Sedo-Scleranthetea), which was first extensively sampled by Josias Braun-Blanquet and collaborators during the 1950s. We visited the Rhône valley in the cantons of Vaud and Valais, one of the most ex-treme xerothermic islands of the Alps and the Rhine and Inn valleys in the canton of Grison. In total, 30 nested-plot series (EDGG biodi-versity plots) of 0.0001 to 100 m² and 82 plots of 10 m² were sampled in meso-xeric, xeric and rocky grasslands of 25 different sites, rang-ing from 500 to 1,656 m a.s.l., under different topographic, bedrock and landuse conditions. All vascular plants, bryophytes and lichens were recorded in each plot, along with their cover values. We found on average 28.9 vascular plants on 10 m²; which was the lowest mean species richness of any previous EDGG Field Workshop. These values are comparable to the average species richness values of dry grasslands of the Aosta valley in Italy. The data sampled will be used to understand the biodiversity patterns regionally and in the Palae-arctic context as well as to place the Swiss dry grasslands in the modern European syntaxonomic system

Grasslands and coastal habitats of Southern Ukraine : first results from the 15th EDGG Field Workshop

The 15th EDGG Field Workshop took place from 24 May to 3 June 2021 in Southern Ukraine (Kherson and Mykolaiv adminis-trative regions). Over 10 days, we sampled different types of grasslands, mainly focusing on dry grasslands of the classes Festuco-Brometea, Koelerio-Corynephoretea canescentis, and Festuco-Puccinellietea (steppic, sandy and saline, respectively) but also taking into account other open habitats, such as mesic grasslands and dunes. In total, we sampled 50 nested-plot series with 7–8 grain sizes from 1 cm2 to 100 m2 and, in some cases, up to 1000 m2 (“EDGG Biodiversity Plots”), plus 74 additional normal plots of 10 m2 . We comprehen-sively sampled vascular plants as well as terricolous bryophytes and lichens, and, for the first time also Sciaridae (Diptera, Insecta). One vascular plant species (Torilis pseudonodosa), as well as two lichen species (Cladonia conista and Endocarpon loscosii), were recorded for the first time from Ukraine. Two species of moss (Rhynchostegium megapolitanum and Ptychostomum torquescens) and three species of lichen (Cladonia cervicornis, C. symphycarpa, and Involucropyrenium breussi) were reported for the first time for the Kherson region. We summarize the scale-dependent richness values and compare them with those from other studies. The report concludes with a photo diary with impressions from the Field Workshop

Rapid functional but slow species diversity recovery of steppe vegetation on former arable fields in southern Ukraine

Questions: European steppes are among the most threatened ecosystems in the Palaearctic region, mainly because of conversion to arable land. Abandonment may allow for the passive recovery of steppes. We made use of an exceptional old-field succession chronosequence of nearly 100 years to answer the following questions: (a) Are the plant species composition, species richness and functional characteristics typical of virgin grass steppes able to self-restore during ca. 100 years after abandonment? (b) Do the rates of recovery of the above vegetation characteristics differ over the studied chronosequence? (c) Do topsoil carbon and nitrogen content change over the succession chronosequence, leading to concentrations similar to that of virgin steppes? Location: Southern Ukraine. Methods: We sampled vegetation and soil in a virgin grass steppe and in old fields abandoned for 6, 15, 31, 50 and ca. 97 years. We subjected the composition data to multivariate analysis. To test whether species richness, functional and soil characteristics of the old fields diverge from those of the virgin steppe, we used one-way analysis of variance with Tukey's honestly significant difference (HSD) statistic to create 90% confidence intervals. Results: The vegetation composition of the three most recently abandoned old fields differed significantly from that of the virgin steppe. The species richness of vascular plants was lower in old fields than in the virgin steppe. The share of steppe habitat specialists was similar to the virgin steppe only in the field abandoned for ca. 97 years. Functional characteristics were significantly different from the virgin steppe only in the most recently abandoned old field. Contents of Corg and Ntot in fields abandoned for ≤50 years were lower compared with the virgin steppe. Conclusions: The functional characteristics of steppe vegetation seem to recover much faster than its biodiversity. However, based on our results, 100 years can be enough time for the spontaneous re-establishment of typical steppe vegetation

GrassPlot v. 2.00 – first update on the database of multi-scale plant diversity in Palaearctic grasslands

Abstract: GrassPlot is a collaborative vegetation-plot database organised by the Eurasian Dry Grassland Group (EDGG) and listed in the Global Index of Vegetation-Plot Databases (GIVD ID EU-00-003). Following a previous Long Database Report (Dengler et al. 2018, Phyto- coenologia 48, 331–347), we provide here the first update on content and functionality of GrassPlot. The current version (GrassPlot v. 2.00) contains a total of 190,673 plots of different grain sizes across 28,171 independent plots, with 4,654 nested-plot series including at least four grain sizes. The database has improved its content as well as its functionality, including addition and harmonization of header data (land use, information on nestedness, structure and ecology) and preparation of species composition data. Currently, GrassPlot data are intensively used for broad-scale analyses of different aspects of alpha and beta diversity in grassland ecosystems

Species-area relationships in continuous vegetation : evidence from Palaearctic grasslands

Aim Species–area relationships (SARs) are fundamental scaling laws in ecology although their shape is still disputed. At larger areas, power laws best represent SARs. Yet, it remains unclear whether SARs follow other shapes at finer spatial grains in continuous vegetation. We asked which function describes SARs best at small grains and explored how sampling methodology or the environment influence SAR shape. Location Palaearctic grasslands and other non‐forested habitats. Taxa Vascular plants, bryophytes and lichens. Methods We used the GrassPlot database, containing standardized vegetation‐plot data from vascular plants, bryophytes and lichens spanning a wide range of grassland types throughout the Palaearctic and including 2,057 nested‐plot series with at least seven grain sizes ranging from 1 cm2 to 1,024 m2. Using nonlinear regression, we assessed the appropriateness of different SAR functions (power, power quadratic, power breakpoint, logarithmic, Michaelis–Menten). Based on AICc, we tested whether the ranking of functions differed among taxonomic groups, methodological settings, biomes or vegetation types. Results The power function was the most suitable function across the studied taxonomic groups. The superiority of this function increased from lichens to bryophytes to vascular plants to all three taxonomic groups together. The sampling method was highly influential as rooted presence sampling decreased the performance of the power function. By contrast, biome and vegetation type had practically no influence on the superiority of the power law. Main conclusions We conclude that SARs of sessile organisms at smaller spatial grains are best approximated by a power function. This coincides with several other comprehensive studies of SARs at different grain sizes and for different taxa, thus supporting the general appropriateness of the power function for modelling species diversity over a wide range of grain sizes. The poor performance of the Michaelis–Menten function demonstrates that richness within plant communities generally does not approach any saturation, thus calling into question the concept of minimal area.publishedVersio

Structural, ecological and biogeographical attributes of European vegetation alliances

The first comprehensive phytosociological classification of all vegetation types in Europe (EuroVegChecklist; Applied Vegetation Science, 2016, 19, 3–264) contained brief descriptions of each type. However, these descriptions were not standardized and mentioned only the most distinct features of each vegetation type. The practical application of the vegetation classification system could be enhanced if users had the option to select sets of vegetation types based on various combinations of structural, ecological, and biogeographical attributes. Based on a literature review and expert knowledge, we created a new database that assigns standardized categorical attributes of 12 variables to each of the 1106 alliances dominated by vascular plants defined in EuroVegChecklist. These variables include dominant life form, phenological optimum, substrate moisture, substrate reaction, salinity, nutrient status, soil organic matter, vegetation region, elevational vegetation belt, azonality, successional status and naturalness. The new database has the potential to enhance the usefulness of phytosociological classification for researchers and practitioners and to help understand this classification to non-specialists