Grob, Philipp Markus

Petersen, Andreas Friis

The global biodiversity crisis has lead to increased conservation efforts for temperate grasslands inEurope and an understanding for the governing factors of fine scale plant distribution patterns istherefore needed. We studied the population of Ophrys apifera at Himmelev Skov as an exampleorganism to how mowing and soil parameters can govern the spacial population structure. Thenumber of individual plants were counted and compared between mowed and unmowed areas ofthe study site. Soil samples of plots with and without orchids were analyzed for parameters suchas dry mass, pH_(CaCl_2) , P_(Olsen), N_(Total) and C_(Total). Our results suggest that mowing increased theamount of habitable area but decreased the relative mean number of individuals when compared tothe unmowed area. Furthermore, a decrease in dry mass and increase in P_(Olsen) was associated withan increased probability of the soil being habitable for O. apifera but both parameters capturedpart of the same soil aspect. These findings indicate that management regime and soil parameterscontribute to govern fine scale distribution patterns of plants and future studies should considerthese complex interactions with more than the presented factors but also measure their effect on alonger timescale

Influence of soil conditions and scything on spatial population structure in temperate grassland orchids: a case study of Ophrys apifera

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Roskilde Universitet