Syntaxonomische Revision der pannonischen Rasengesellschaften in Österreich : 1. Einführung und allgemeiner Überblick

The Pannonian part of Austria is a diverse landscape situated in the transition zone between the Alps, the Bohemian Massif and the Carpathian Basin. Although the grasslands of this region have been investigated in many botanical and vegetation studies, their phytosociological classification has remained confusing. With this paper, we start a series aiming at a developement of a revised, consistent system of the Austrian Pannonian grasslands. Here we present a general overview focusing on the higher syntaxonomic units. We define grasslands as all types of meadows, pastures, fens and primary steppes. We selected all available relevés of Pannonian grasslands from the Austrian Vegetation Database. Additional unpub-lished data were included from the Danube National Park and the Biosphere Reserve Vienna Woods. To account for the comparatively low number of relevés from the northern part of the Pannonian region of Austria (Weinviertel), we included also data from southern Moravia (Czech Republic). This set of 3384 relevés was classified using TWINSPAN. Relevés that were considered as misclassified at the alliance level according to the summarised cover of diagnostic species were manually re-arranged, and the data-set specific fidelity of species to alliances was calculated using the phi coefficient. The first TWINSPAN division largely corresponded to the traditional border between the classes Festuco-Brometea and Molinio-Arrhenatheretea. The conventional alliance concepts were generally well supported. As an exception, the distinction between Diantho-Seslerion and Bromo-Festucion pallentis was not reproduced at all. Therefore, we unite all rocky grasslands on calcareous soils in a single alliance Seslerio-Festucion pallentis. We also advocate the inclusion of all basiphilous semi-dry grasslands of the study area within a single alliance Cirsio-Brachypodion. Each of the corresponding TWINSPAN clusters showed a clear prevalence of Cirsio-Brachypodion species. Moreover, two separate alliances of semi-dry grasslands would have almost no regional character species.Der pannonische Teil Österreichs ist eine der abwechslungsreichsten Landschaften in Mitteleuropa. Zwar wurden die Rasengesellschaften dieser Region bereits in zahlreichen botanischen und vegetationskundlichen Studien beschrieben, doch stellt sich deren pflanzensoziologische Gliederung nach wie vor recht verworren dar. Mit dieser Arbeit beginnen wir eine Publikations-Serie mit dem Ziel, ein revidiertes, konsistentes System der pannonischen Rasengesellschaften Österreichs zu erarbeiten. Basierend auf der numerischen Klassifikation eines großen Datensatzes geben wir einen groben Überblick, und diskutieren einige syntaxonomische Probleme mit Fokus auf den höheren Einheiten (Verbänden). Die detaillierte Klassifikation auf Assoziations- und Subassoziationsniveau wird in den nächsten Teilen folgen, wobei wir jeweils eine landschaftlich mehr oder weniger homogene Subregion (vergleichbar den "Wiesenregionen" nach Suske et al. 2003) behandeln werden. Der Teil 2 dieser Serie wird die Rasengesellschaften im Wienerwald behandeln (siehe Willner et al. 2013 in diesem Band). Eine Synopsis für das gesamte österreichische Pannonicum und angrenzende Gebiete soll den Schluss der Serie bilden

Heavy metal pollution, selection, and genome size: The species of the Zerjav study revisited with flow cytometry.

The Death Valley Zerjav in northern Slovenia exhibits a gradient of heavy metal pollution in the soil with severe consequences for species richness and composition along this gradient. Recently, a progressive loss of large-genome species in parallel with increasing concentrations of heavy metals has been shown. Here, we have measured the genome size of a near-complete sample of these species with flow cytometry and analysed the correlation of heavy metal pollution with the C- and Cx-values assigned to the test plots. The method of probability analysis was a hypergeometric distribution method. We confirm, on a different methodological basis than previously, that along the pollution gradient, species with high C- and Cx-values are increasingly underrepresented. This lends support to the "large genome constraint hypothesis", predicting that plants with large genomes are at a disadvantage under all aspects of evolution, ecology, and phenotype, because junk DNA imposes a load to the organism

Floristic records from Karavanke/ Karawanken and Kamniske Alpe/Steiner Alpen (Slovenia and Austria)

New floristic records from the eastern Karavanke/Karawanken and Kamniske Alpe/Steiner Alpen (Slovenia and Austria) are reported. Allium kermesinum is new for Austria; Arabis soyeri subsp. subcoriacea, Carex rupestris and Draba dubia are new for the Kamniske Alpe/Steiner Alpen; for Androsace hausmannii, Arabis stellulata, Carex ornithopodioides, Pedicularis rosea, Salix serpyllifolia and Veronica fruticulosa new localities are presented. Furthermore, taxonomic problems in Oxytropis sect. Oxytropis and Arabis pumila sensu lato are discussed

Data from: Genetic diversity in widespread species is not congruent with species richness in alpine plant communities

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) aims at the conservation of all three levels of biodiversity, i.e. ecosystems, species and genes. Genetic diversity represents evolutionary potential and is important for ecosystem functioning. Unfortunately, genetic diversity in natural populations is hardly considered in conservation strategies because it is difficult to measure and has been hypothesized to co-vary with species richness. This means that species richness is taken as a surrogate of genetic diversity in conservation planning, though their relationship has not been properly evaluated. We tested whether the genetic and species levels of biodiversity co-vary, using a large-scale and multi-species approach. We chose the high-mountain flora of the Alps and the Carpathians as study systems and demonstrate that species richness and genetic diversity are not correlated. Species richness thus cannot act as a surrogate for genetic diversity. Our results have important consequences for implementing the CBD when designing conservation strategies

Data on species richness and genetic diversity in high-mountain vascular plants of the Alps and the Carpathians

(i) Floristic data of vascular high-mountain plants from the Alps and the Carpathians, with occurrences of each species with a regular grid system (ii) Species-specific AFLP data (1/0 matrices) separately for samples from Alps and Carpathians, collected along the same grid system as the floristic dat