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Patterns of variation in plant diversity vary over different spatial levels in seasonal coastal wetlands

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posted on 2023-04-06, 15:51 authored by Ciara Dwyer, Jonathan MillettJonathan Millett, Laurence Jones, Ruud P Bartholomeus, Lisanne van Willegen, Anna Chavasse, Robin J Pakeman

Aim: To quantify the responses of alpha and beta diversity to multivariate gradients, incorporating variation in environmental and management variability in coastal dune slacks. Location: United Kingdom dune slacks. 

Methods: Plant community composition, plant nutrient status and soil characteristics were measured for 164 quadrats in 41 dune slacks across 12 coastal sand dune systems. Data were collated on climate and atmospheric deposition. Hydrological regimes at daily resolution were modelled and calibrated using daily-to-monthly site measurements, from which we calculated quadrat-level hydrological metrics. Alpha diversity (richness, Shannon diversity and Pielou's evenness) metrics and beta diversity (turnover and nestedness) for species and genera were calculated across three spatial levels from sand dune system (highest) to dune slack to quadrat (lowest). 

Results: Diversity patterns depended on the spatial and taxonomic level considered. At smaller spatial levels (between dune slacks and between quadrats), alpha and beta diversity varied along gradients driven by soil characteristics, water table depth and atmospheric deposition. At larger spatial levels (between sand dune systems), patterns of beta diversity were a consequence of plant nutrient status. There was little variability in alpha diversity along this same gradient, with only small changes in Pielou's species evenness. Patterns at a coarser taxonomic level (genus) mirrored those at the species level. 

Main conclusion: We show that patterns of variation in plant diversity are dependent on the spatial level considered, but taxonomic level made little difference in understanding these patterns. Therefore, if we do not consider patterns across different spatial levels, important environmental and management drivers could be missed. The high biodiversity value and degree of threat to these European protected habitats makes such understanding invaluable for their conservation.

Funding

The Central England NERC Training Alliance

History

School

  • Social Sciences and Humanities

Department

  • Geography and Environment

Published in

Diversity and Distributions

Volume

28

Issue

9

Pages

1875 - 1890

Publisher

Wiley

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Rights holder

© The Authors

Publisher statement

This is an Open Access article published by Wiley under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. See https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Acceptance date

2022-05-31

Publication date

2022-06-28

Copyright date

2022

ISSN

1366-9516

eISSN

1472-4642

Language

  • en

Depositor

Dr Jonathan Millett. Deposit date: 4 April 2023