engleski

Grasslands of Europe: an overview of available data in EVA and First approaches to analyse their diversity patterns at continental scale

After two preparatory years, the European Vegetation Archive (EVA ; http://euroveg. org/eva-database) actually started to become functional in 2014 (see talk by Chytrý et al.). This community-owned continental vegetation-plot database is the largest database of that type in the world and aims to be comprehensive with regard to countries and vegetation types. It is coordinated by the European Vegetation Survey (EVS ; http://euroveg.org/) with responsibilities for the grassland vegetation by the BiodivERsA project SIGNAL (http://www.bayceer.uni-bayreuth.de/signal/) and the European Dry Grassland Group (EDGG ; http://www.edgg.org). In this talk, I will present an overview of the plot data of grassland syntaxa available in EVA at the point of time of the conference, with an outlook on additional data that are currently being processed, and highlight data gaps for certain grassland types or regions. We understand grasslands in a wide sense, including the following major groups: (1) Temperate grasslands (Koelerio-Corynephoretea, Festuco-Brometea, Molinio-Arrhenatheretea, Nardetea strictae) ; (2) Mediterranean grasslands (Poetea bulbosae, Lygeo-Stipetea, Stipo-Agrostietea, Stipo-Trachynietea, Helianthemetea guttati, Tolpido-Holcetea, Helichryso-Crucianelletea, Astragalo-Brometea) ; (3) Arctic-alpine grasslands (Carici-Kobresietea, Elyno-Seslerietea, Juncetea trifidi) ; (4) Oro-Mediterranean grasslands (Festucetea indigestae, Festuco-Ononidetea, Carici-Genistetea, Rumici-Astragaletea, Daphno-Festucetea, Diantho-Teucrietea) ; (5) Saline grasslands (Festuco-Puccinellietea, Juncetea maritimae, Saginetea maritimae) ; (6) Related heathlands (Calluno-Ulicetea, Loiseleurio-Vaccinietea) ; and (7) Related tall-forb and forest-edge communities (Trifolio-Geranietea, Mulgedio-Aconitetea). Further, I will introduce the great and novel potential that our Continental grassland plot database holds both for fundamental and applied research. The topics that can be addressed in an unprecedented manner include (i) fine-grain species-richness patterns and their underlying drivers across large spatial extents ; (ii) functional diversity and species assembly rules ; (iii) extrapolation of results from coordinated global change experiments to a continental scale ; (iv) consistent re-classification of major grassland types across Europe ; (v) standardized parameterization of vegetation types ; (vi) contributions to conservation assessments such as EU red listing of habitat types. With some first analyses of diversity patterns in grasslands across Europe I will illustrate this potential.

grasslands; Europe

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