Applied Vegetation Science

Logging and fire suppression in the Lake Tahoe Basin have increased forest density and potential for severe fires, especially in lower elevation forests. Forest restoration should reduce density, basal area, and shift species composition by thinning small diameter trees. Thinning will reduce potential for severe fire and periodic surface fuel treatments will be needed to maintain lower fuel loads.

We investigated whether the creation of linear canopy openings causes edge effects on understory communities in a Brazilian Atlantic forest. Species richness was not affected by edges. Disturbance-tolerant species were more abundant in edges than in forest interiors, while disturbance-sensitive species did not show differences among treatments. Such effects were distinct from those found at typical edges of forest fragments.

Vegetation-plot databases are sometimes used to assess temporal vegetation change, but such analyses may be incorrect because old and new records are usually taken at different sites. We assessed the accuracy of such analyses against the background of permanent-plot data. Our results demonstrate that vegetation-plot databases can often suggest false vegetation change, therefore they should be interpreted with utmost caution.

The timberline meadows of the NW North American cordillera are among the largest natural meadow formations worldwide. However, human activities and climate change are putting this vegetation type under new pressures. In a first pan-regional survey we found compositional turnover with latitude, with species richness increasing with higher soil pH and towards the northern and southern ends of our gradient.

We developed a three-dimensional woody vegetation structural classification for savannas to capture the context of biogeophysical drivers. LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) data were used to calculate Canopy Cover, Sub-canopy Cover, Canopy Layers, Simpson's Diversity Index and Cohesion for 0.25 ha grid cells based on vertical and horizontal spatial arrangement of vegetation. The classification provides a sensitive change detection method.

Classification tree analysis was used to determine how effectively ancient woodland indicator plants can be distinguished based upon life history traits. Characteristics such as plant height and lifespan were effective in separating these species from other woodland plants. More common ancient woodland indicators were less successfully discriminated in this way however, and may potentially be less reliable as indicator species.

To address loss of soil nutrients in the mining process, fertiliser is generally added in mine-site restoration. We investigated fertiliser effects on restoration outcomes for jarrah-forest restored after bauxite mining. Fertiliser-P significantly affected plant cover, species richness and community composition suggesting a trade-off between using fertiliser to stimulate rapid plant establishment to minimise erosion and achieving high species richness.

Weed management systems that included the use of glyphosate-resistant crops had only a limited effect on arable weed species communities in 156 fields across six US states over five years. Rather, these communities were most affected by location and the crop planted. Locally-adapted management is required to maintain weed biodiversity while maximizing crop yield.

We investigated the effects of human-induce fires on woody plant components a dry decidous forest. We conclude from our results that fire severely impacts the middle forest layers with trees higher than 1.50 m and diameters less than 15 cm and alters forest structure, including species richness and diversity of trees of the dry deciduous forest of Central Menabe.

This study is one of the first to use a functional trait analysis to analyse the outcome of ecological restoration. The study shows that a functional trait analysis can reveal trait changes caused by the restoration actions, as well as shed light on differences in functional trait composition between the restoration site and the reference site.

We repeated a historical field experiment to compare rates of woody mortality resulting from recent droughts to the exceptional drought of 1951–1957. Mortality was greater following the more severe drought of the 1950s than recent flash droughts from 2000 to 2011. Long-term land management legacies interacted with localized differences in topoedaphic factors to drive patch-level shifts in woody vegetation following drought.

Subarctic treelines are commonly predicted to show pronounced advance in response to climate change. This study, combining remote sensing techniques and ground based age structure data, shows modest rates. Studies combining these methods minimize the risk of under- or overestimating potential advance.

Our study was conducted within plant communities in grasslands that were either grazed or ungrazed. We compared spatial autocorrelation to richness, Shannon diversity, and Nonmetric Multidimensional Scaling. We found that disturbance and moisture level were reflected differently in the different analyses. Spatial autocorrelation is another tool that can be used by managers to analyze plant communities and make decisions.

We examined the precision of five methods of measuring vertical herbaceous cover using ground-based digital imagery vegetation analysis (DIVA) techniques. Although environmental conditions affected the vertical vegetation obstruction estimates, certain DIVA techniques were capable of accounting for various conditions. Overall, four of the five DIVA techniques proved sufficient for measuring standing herbaceous cover and reduced error associated with multiple observers.

The seed bank contained 76 species with overrepresentation of exotic species and underrepresentation of woody species. Exotic species occurred throughout the entire property and high deer browse was correlated with decreased seed bank abundance and richness. Reliance on the soil seed bank as a passive restoration strategy will be insufficient for restoring a mature secondary successional suburban forest community.

Soil compaction and a reduction in soil biota size classes are common consequences of intensified land use. Our results show that a reduction of soil biota sizes may change the impact of soil compaction on plant communities. The most detrimental effects of soil compaction were detected in soils with a range of soil biota size classes and thus higher complexity.

Diversification of grassland management is recommended as a tool for conservation of different taxonomical groups. We studied plant response in species-rich grasslands to short-term changes in management practice. Abandonment but not other relaxed management regimes (high stubble, delayed mowing) caused loss of plant diversity in productive grasslands but not in less productive grasslands. Grassland productivity should be considered when applying relaxed management in grassland.

Biria forest, November 2006, following the wildland fire which occurred in the previous summer (August). Salvage logging was already applied in part of the burned area.

This paper is the first description of subtropical Eastern Asia's forest vegetation in a broad scale using large vegetation database. It is also the first vegetation classification scheme applying the azonal concept in this region. The result of classification is formalized by Cocktail Determination Key (CoDeK). A R-based program and example plots for running CoDeK are provided in the appendices.

In this study we investigated the vegetation of high alpine and subnival scree habitats in high mountains of N and NW Iran. Altitude, aspect and soil conditions are the major ecological factors determining species composition of the studied vegetation types. We present a new classification scheme arranging the communities in one class, two orders, three alliances and ten associations.

We evaluated how increased nitrogen deposition might affect dominance of the invasive annual grass, Bromus tectorum, at one of its high elevation range margins. Although we found no evidence that nitrogen would affect its spread, our results indicated that B. tectorum cover was negatively associated with native forb diversity, which is notable at such an early stage of invasion.

We studied if predictors derived from high resolution remote sensing data can improve models of species richness. We found that such predictors substantially improved species richness models. Improvement, however, depended on biogeographic regions and the species group considered. We concluded that high-resolution predictors excellently complement more commonly used coarser-scaled predictors as they are available over large areas at low cost.

The Tygerberg is one of the largest remaining fragments of threatended renosterveld vegetation in South Africa. Here, it was found that abandoned agricultural fields have a very low restoration potential. In contrast, pine plantation sites should be given priority in restoration with soil chemistry less significantly altered and a viable indigenous soil seed bank still present.

This study analyzed the role of domestic goat as disperser of four endangered and endemic species of cacti. We analyzed the survival of seed after passage through the digestive tract of the goat and evaluated the capacity of viable seeds to germinate directly from fecal pellets. Our results show that domestic goat are potential dispersers of these species.

Plant communities vary in importance for honeybee foraging mainly due to differences in floristic composition and flowering phenology. Communities characterized by human presence are the most relevant. Some target species favoured by grazing livestock ensure foraging for honeybees throughout the season. Plant communities of wild areas, such as the garrigue vegetation, provide foraging for unifloral valuable honey.