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Environmental, spatial and temporal drivers of plant community composition in British forest habitat / Adam Robert Kimberley (2015)  

Public Titre : Environmental, spatial and temporal drivers of plant community composition in British forest habitat Type de document : Thèse/HDR Auteurs : Adam Robert Kimberley, Auteur Editeur : Lancaster [Royaume-Uni] : Lancaster University Année de publication : 2015 Importance : 197 p. Format : 21 x 30 cm Note générale : bibliographie thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the award of the degree of doctor of Philosophy Langues : Anglais (eng) Descripteur : [Termes IGN] analyse diachronique [Termes IGN] Angleterre [Termes IGN] association végétale [Termes IGN] composition floristique [Termes IGN] corridor biologique [Termes IGN] habitat forestier [Termes IGN] politique de conservation (biodiversité) [Vedettes matières IGN] Ecologie forestière Résumé : (auteur) Broadleaved forest habitat is important for a number of ecosystem functions and as a refuge for many rare plant species in human-modified landscapes. It is however, threatened by global change drivers such as deforestation and the associated fragmentation of remaining habitat areas, along with increased disturbance and exposure to nutrient inputs from surrounding intensive agriculture. This thesis uses a unique combination of data on plant species occurrence, local environmental conditions and forest spatial extent in order to investigate the ways in which species richness and functional diversity in forest communities are dependent upon local and landscape scale drivers, and to quantify the strength of these relationships. This provides novel understanding of the response of forest plants with different life history traits to the configuration and quality of available habitat, and therefore the way in which understorey assemblages are likely to alter over time following landscape change. Results highlight the importance of local environmental conditions within forest patches but also suggest that patch area and landscape connectivity have an important effect on the trait composition of communities. Preserving large, well connected areas of habitat is therefore likely to be key for the conservation of many species, particularly rarer forest specialists which often possess traits linked to low dispersal ability. Furthermore, there is evidence that species are slow to respond to changes in the spatial extent of habitat. As such, considering the history of forest patches is necessary in order to explain present day patterns in plant species occurrence and to devise effective conservation measures. This highlights the need to integrate understanding of local and landscape scale processes with temporal data in order to properly understand the way in which forest communities are formed and to predict ongoing change under expected global change scenarios. Note de contenu : 1. Introduction 2. literature review : spatial and temporal drivers of forest plant community composition 3. Identifying the trait syndromes of conservation indicator species: how distinct are British ancient woodland indicator from other woodland species ? 4. Trait of plant communities in fragmented forests: the relative influence of habitat spatial configuration and local abiotic conditions 5. How well is current plant trait composition predicted by modern and historical forest spatial configuration ? 6. Forest change in the Anthropocene: do we need to combine habitat suitability and landscape connectivity to model understorey biodiversity ? 7. Conclusions Numéro de notice : 17358 Affiliation des auteurs : non IGN Thématique : BIODIVERSITE/FORET Nature : Thèse étrangère Note de thèse : PhD thesis : : Lancaster : 2015 En ligne : http://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/75551/ Format de la ressource électronique : URL Permalink : https://documentation.ensg.eu/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=83826