Testing macroecological abundance patterns: The relationship between local abundance and range size, range position and climatic suitability among European vascular plants

Aim: A fundamental question in macroecology centres around understanding the relationship between species' local abundance and their distribution in geographical and climatic space (i.e. the multi‐dimensional climatic space or climatic niche). Here, we tested three macroecological hypotheses that link local abundance to the following range properties: (a) the abundance-range size relationship, (b) the abundance-range centre relationship and (c) the abundance-suitability relationship. Location: Europe. Taxon: Vascular plants. Methods: Distribution range maps were extracted from the Chorological Database Halle to derive information on the range and niche sizes of 517 European vascular plant species. To estimate local abundance, we assessed samples from 744,513 vegetation plots in the European Vegetation Archive, where local species' abundance is available as plant cover per plot. We then calculated the 'centrality', that is, the distance between the location of the abundance observation and each species' range centre in geographical and climatic space. The climatic suitability of plot locations was estimated using coarse‐grain species distribution models (SDMs). The relationships between centrality or climatic suitability with abundance was tested using linear models and quantile regression. We summarized the overall trend across species' regression slopes from linear models and quantile regression using a meta‐analytical approach. Results: We did not detect any positive relationships between a species' mean local abundance and the size of its geographical range or climatic niche. Contrasting yet significant correlations were detected between abundance and centrality or climatic suitability among species. Main conclusions: Our results do not provide unequivocal support for any of the relationships tested, demonstrating that determining properties of species' distributions at large grains and extents might be of limited use for predicting local abundance, including current SDM approaches. We conclude that environmental factors influencing individual performance and local abundance are likely to differ from those factors driving plant species' distribution at coarse resolution and broad geographical extents

EUNIS Habitat Classification: Expert system, characteristic species combinations and distribution maps of European habitats

Aim: The EUNIS Habitat Classification is a widely used reference framework for European habitat types (habitats), but it lacks formal definitions of individual habitats that would enable their unequivocal identification. Our goal was to develop a tool for assigning vegetation‐plot records to the habitats of the EUNIS system, use it to classify a European vegetation‐plot database, and compile statistically‐derived characteristic species combinations and distribution maps for these habitats. Location: Europe. Methods: We developed the classification expert system EUNIS‐ESy, which contains definitions of individual EUNIS habitats based on their species composition and geographic location. Each habitat was formally defined as a formula in a computer language combining algebraic and set‐theoretic concepts with formal logical operators. We applied this expert system to classify 1,261,373 vegetation plots from the European Vegetation Archive (EVA) and other databases. Then we determined diagnostic, constant and dominant species for each habitat by calculating species‐to‐habitat fidelity and constancy (occurrence frequency) in the classified data set. Finally, we mapped the plot locations for each habitat. Results: Formal definitions were developed for 199 habitats at Level 3 of the EUNIS hierarchy, including 25 coastal, 18 wetland, 55 grassland, 43 shrubland, 46 forest and 12 man‐made habitats. The expert system classified 1,125,121 vegetation plots to these habitat groups and 73,188 to other habitats, while 63,064 plots remained unclassified or were classified to more than one habitat. Data on each habitat were summarized in factsheets containing habitat description, distribution map, corresponding syntaxa and characteristic species combination. Conclusions: EUNIS habitats were characterized for the first time in terms of their species composition and distribution, based on a classification of a European database of vegetation plots using the newly developed electronic expert system EUNIS‐ESy. The data provided and the expert system have considerable potential for future use in European nature conservation planning, monitoring and assessment

Climate-trait relationships exhibit strong habitat specificity in plant communities across Europe

Ecological theory predicts close relationships between macroclimate and functional traits. Yet, global climatic gradients correlate only weakly with the trait composition of local plant communities, suggesting that important factors have been ignored. Here, we investigate the consistency of climate-trait relationships for plant communities in European habitats. Assuming that local factors are better accounted for in more narrowly defined habitats, we assigned > 300,000 vegetation plots to hierarchically classified habitats and modelled the effects of climate on the community-weighted means of four key functional traits using generalized additive models. We found that the predictive power of climate increased from broadly to narrowly defined habitats for specific leaf area and root length, but not for plant height and seed mass. Although macroclimate generally predicted the distribution of all traits, its effects varied, with habitat-specificity increasing toward more narrowly defined habitats. We conclude that macroclimate is an important determinant of terrestrial plant communities, but future predictions of climatic effects must consider how habitats are defined

Distribution maps of vegetation alliances in Europe

Aim: The first comprehensive checklist of European phytosociological alliances, orders and classes (EuroVegChecklist) was published by Mucina et al. (2016, Applied Vegetation Science, 19 (Suppl. 1), 3–264). However, this checklist did not contain detailed information on the distribution of individual vegetation types. Here we provide the first maps of all alliances in Europe. Location: Europe, Greenland, Canary Islands, Madeira, Azores, Cyprus and the Caucasus countries. Methods: We collected data on the occurrence of phytosociological alliances in European countries and regions from literature and vegetation-plot databases. We interpreted and complemented these data using the expert knowledge of an international team of vegetation scientists and matched all the previously reported alliance names and concepts with those of the EuroVegChecklist. We then mapped the occurrence of the EuroVegChecklist alliances in 82 territorial units corresponding to countries, large islands, archipelagos and peninsulas. We subdivided the mainland parts of large or biogeographically heterogeneous countries based on the European biogeographical regions. Specialized alliances of coastal habitats were mapped only for the coastal section of each territorial unit. Results: Distribution maps were prepared for 1,105 alliances of vascular-plant dominated vegetation reported in the EuroVegChecklist. For each territorial unit, three levels of occurrence probability were plotted on the maps: (a) verified occurrence; (b) uncertain occurrence; and (c) absence. The maps of individual alliances were complemented by summary maps of the number of alliances and the alliance–area relationship. Distribution data are also provided in a spreadsheet. Conclusions: The new map series represents the first attempt to characterize the distribution of all vegetation types at the alliance level across Europe. There are still many knowledge gaps, partly due to a lack of data for some regions and partly due to uncertainties in the definition of some alliances. The maps presented here provide a basis for future research aimed at filling these gaps

<scp>ReSurveyEurope</scp>: A database of resurveyed vegetation plots in Europe

AbstractAimsWe introduce ReSurveyEurope — a new data source of resurveyed vegetation plots in Europe, compiled by a collaborative network of vegetation scientists. We describe the scope of this initiative, provide an overview of currently available data, governance, data contribution rules, and accessibility. In addition, we outline further steps, including potential research questions.ResultsReSurveyEurope includes resurveyed vegetation plots from all habitats. Version 1.0 of ReSurveyEurope contains 283,135 observations (i.e., individual surveys of each plot) from 79,190 plots sampled in 449 independent resurvey projects. Of these, 62,139 (78%) are permanent plots, that is, marked in situ, or located with GPS, which allow for high spatial accuracy in resurvey. The remaining 17,051 (22%) plots are from studies in which plots from the initial survey could not be exactly relocated. Four data sets, which together account for 28,470 (36%) plots, provide only presence/absence information on plant species, while the remaining 50,720 (64%) plots contain abundance information (e.g., percentage cover or cover–abundance classes such as variants of the Braun‐Blanquet scale). The oldest plots were sampled in 1911 in the Swiss Alps, while most plots were sampled between 1950 and 2020.ConclusionsReSurveyEurope is a new resource to address a wide range of research questions on fine‐scale changes in European vegetation. The initiative is devoted to an inclusive and transparent governance and data usage approach, based on slightly adapted rules of the well‐established European Vegetation Archive (EVA). ReSurveyEurope data are ready for use, and proposals for analyses of the data set can be submitted at any time to the coordinators. Still, further data contributions are highly welcome.</jats:sec

Analysis of Innovative Technologies Which are Used in Physical Education of Students

Сегодня система обучения в вузе характеризуется высокой интенсивностью образовательного процесса, информационной насыщенностью. Установлено, что на фоне интенсификации учебного процесса в вузах, отмечается тенденция снижения объëма двигательной активности студентов, что отрицательно сказывается на гармоничном физическом развитии, физической подготовленности и функциональном состоянии занимающихся. В настоящее время перед системой физического воспитания в вузе на первый план выходит поиск эффективных инновационных технологий оздоровления студенческой молодëжи. Определено, что под инновационной технологией понимают воспроизводимую в массовой педагогической практике целенаправленную систему действий по разработке иерархии диагностируемых учебных целей и задач по определению рациональных способов их достижения в виде конкретных результатов. Систематизированы научные данные, касающиеся использования современных оздоровительных технологий в процессе физического воспитания студентов. Today the system of education in high school is characterized by high intensity of the educational process, information saturation. It was found that there was a tendency to reduce the volume of student’s physical activity because of the intensification of the educational process in higher school, which affected negatively on the harmonious physical development, physical fitness and functional status of the students. At present, the first problem of the system of physical education in high school is to search effective and innovative technology for improvement of student’s health. It was determined that target directed system of actions for the development of the hierarchy of diagnosing educational goals and objectives for identification of the rational ways of achieving them in the form of concrete results was understood as the innovative technology which was realized reproducibly in mass teaching practice. Scientific data on the use of modern health technologies in physical education of students have been systematized

The Technology of the State of Schoolchildren’s Spatial Body Positioning in the Process of Physical Education

На современном уровне знаний пространственную организацию тела понимают как единство морфологической и функциональной организации человека, отражающееся в его внешней форме. Установлено, что к настоящему времени разработаны и внедрены различные варианты технологий и методик для количественной и качественной оценки биогеометрического профиля осанки, опорно-рессорных свойств стопы, а также соматотипирования школьников. Однако наблюдаемые в последние годы негативные тенденции в состоянии здоровья детей и подростков обусловливают необходимость поиска новых современных методов наблюдения за физическим развитием школьников с целью разработки адекватных оздоровительных технологий. Разработана технология контроля состояния пространственной организации тела школьников, состоящая из диагностического, информационного и практического этапов, включающая два модуля – комплексный и экспресс-контроль, а также аксеологический компонент. At the modern stage of knowledge the spatial body positioning is understood as a unity of morphologic and functional positioning of the person, which is reflected in his/her external form. It was proved that up to now different variants of technologies and methodologies for quantitative and qualitative estimation of the biogeometric posture pattern were developed and implemented, as well as for the foot support-springing properties and somatic typing of the schoolchildren. Though, lately noticed negative tendencies in the children’s and teenager’s health, stimulate the necessity of search of new modern methods of physical progress observation of the schoolchildren aiming to develop relevant recreational technologies. The technology of control of the state of schoolchildren’s spatial body positioning consisting of two modules: complex and express-test as well as axiological component, has been developed

Boosting Hydrogen Production from Formic Acid over Pd Catalysts by Deposition of N-Containing Precursors on the Carbon Support

Formic acid is a promising liquid organic hydrogen carrier (LOHC) since it has relatively high hydrogen content (4.4 wt%), low inflammability, low toxicity and can be obtained from biomass or from CO2. The aim of the present research was the creation of efficient 1 wt% Pd catalysts supported on mesoporous graphitic carbon (Sibunit) for the hydrogen production from gas-phase formic acid. For this purpose, the carbon support was modified by pyrolysis of deposited precursors containing pyridinic nitrogen such as melamine (Mel), 2,2&prime;-bipyridine (Bpy) or 1,10-phenanthroline (Phen) at 673 K. The following activity trend of the catalysts Pd/Mel/C &gt; Pd/C ~ Pd/Bpy/C &gt; Pd/Phen/C was obtained. The activity of the Pd/Mel/C catalyst was by a factor of 4 higher than the activity of the Pd/C catalyst at about 373 K and the apparent activation energy was significantly lower than those for the other catalysts (32 vs. 42&ndash;46 kJ/mol). The high activity of the melamine-based samples was explained by a high dispersion of Pd nanoparticles (~2 nm, HRTEM) and their strong electron-deficient character (XPS) provided by interaction of Pd with pyridinic nitrogen species of the support. The presented results can be used for the development of supported Pd catalysts for hydrogen production from different liquid organic hydrogen carriers

Assessing sampling coverage of species distribution in biodiversity databases

Abstract Aim Biodiversity databases are valuable resources for understanding plant species distributions and dynamics, but they may insufficiently represent the actual geographic distribution and climatic niches of species. Here we propose and test a method to assess sampling coverage of species distribution in biodiversity databases in geographic and climatic space. Location Europe. Methods Using a test selection of 808,794 vegetation plots from the European Vegetation Archive (EVA), we assessed the sampling coverage of 564 European vascular plant species across both their geographic ranges and realized climatic niches. Range maps from the Chorological Database Halle (CDH) were used as background reference data to capture species geographic ranges and to derive species climatic niches. To quantify sampling coverage, we developed a box-counting method, the Dynamic Match Coefficient (DMC), which quantifies how much a set of occurrences of a given species matches with its geographic range or climatic niche. DMC is the area under the curve measuring the match between occurrence data and background reference (geographic range or climatic niche) across grids with variable resolution. High DMC values indicate good sampling coverage. We applied null models to compare observed DMC values with expectations from random distributions across species ranges and niches. Results Comparisons with null models showed that, for most species, actual distributions within EVA are deviating from null model expectations and are more clumped than expected in both geographic and climatic space. Despite high interspecific variation, we found a positive relationship in DMC values between geographic and climatic space, but sampling coverage was in general more random across geographic space. Conclusion Because DMC values are species-specific and most biodiversity databases are clearly biased in terms of sampling coverage of species occurrences, we recommend using DMC values as covariates in macroecological models that use species as the observation unit. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.Peer reviewe

System Plan for California\u27s Bay Area Regional Express Bus Service

Express buses operating on freeways and arterials are an important part of many metropolitan area transit services. A regional express bus system plan for the San Francisco, California, Bay Area is presented; network, station and stop, operations, and user issues are addressed. Previous work had focused on high-occupancy vehicles on freeways; the current work expands the vision of the system to address the door-to-door trip and service on arterials. Gaps in the high-occupancy-vehicle network, priority treatment strategies, access modes and connections, station and stop design, park-and-ride lots, and public and private access services were analyzed, and other user and operator concerns were addressed. The plan was developed through a partnership that included the state transportation agency, the metropolitan planning organization, local transportation sales tax and congestion management agencies, and transit operators, with university researchers providing technical support and facilitation of meetings. On-board surveys and consumer focus groups were conducted along with stakeholder interviews, field studies, design evaluations, and simulation modeling. The plan not only produced valuable information for future improvements but also helped develop a high level of cooperation and consensus among the participating agencies. Both methods used and lessons learned from the Bay Area experience should be useful to other metropolitan areas and transit operators