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From tall-herb communities to pine forests: distribution patterns of 121 plant species during a 585-year
regeneration process
Martin Schütz1, Otto Wildi1, Bertil O. Krüsi1, Kathi Märki2, Bernhard Nievergelt21 Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL, CH-8903 Birmensdorf, Switzerland2 Institute of Zoology, Wildlife Research and Conservation Biology, University of Zurich, CH-8057 Zurich, Switzerland AbstractWe have developed a 585-year model to describe the succession processes on subalpine grassland in the Swiss National Park. Over this period, six plant communities succeed each other from tall-herb communities through four different stages of grassland to mountain pine forest. 121 important, i.e. common and widespread, plant species are involved in this process. About 20 of these plant species achieve dominance or at least co-dominance in particular successional stages. None of the other species are ever abundant during the succession. Species richness, i.e. the number of plant species involved in the process at a particular time in the model, varies greatly. Between the start and the model-year 370, the number of plant species involved in the succession process increases sixfold. Between model-year 435 and the end of the model in the year 585, species richness decreases to a third. Two grassland communities are particularly species-rich; the community dominated by red fescue (Festuca rubra) and the one dominated by mat grass (Nardus stricta). Red fescue achieves dominance in grassland that is nutrient-rich and thus intensively grazed by red deer, whereas mat grass is dominant in ungrazed and nutrient-poor grassland.The distribution of plant species over time in the succession model cannot be reliably described by applying separately either the continuum model or the community-unit model. A combination of both approaches provides the best description. The distribution of the 20 plant species which achieve dominance or co-dominance in a particular stage of the model follows the continuum model. The distribution of the more than 100 less abundant species, however, can be best described by the community-unit model. They are hierarchically subordinate to the dominant or co-dominant species; i.e. their ecological optimum coincides with that of dominant or co-dominant species. Preface | abstract 1 | abstract 2 | abstract 3 | abstract 4 | abstract 5 | abstract 6 | abstract 7 | abstract 8 | abstract 9 | abstract 10 | abstract 11 |