Community Ecology
Volume/Issue:
Volume 12: Issue 2
Is species richness of small spring fens influenced by the spatial mass effect?
Authors:
E. Hettenbergerová Masaryk University Department of Botany and Zoology, Faculty of Science Kotláøská 2 CZ-61137 Brno Czech Republic

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and
M. Hájek

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Pages:
202–209
Online Publication Date:
17 Nov 2011
Publication Date:
01 Dec 2011
Article Category:
Journal Article
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1556/comec.12.2011.2.8
Keywords:
Carpathians; Coexistence; Grassland; Source-sink dynamics; Species pool; Vegetation; Vicinism
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Ecological theory predicts that the species composition of island habitats is, among others, shaped by the mass effect of nearby ill-adapted populations, but this has rarely been tested. We investigated small calcareous spring fens scattered within species-rich grasslands in a region in which particular locations differ in climatic and edaphic conditions. Fens in colder, moister and less calcareous north-eastern (NE) locations harboured more plant species from surrounding grasslands and displayed higher similarity with the surroundings than the fens in warmer, drier and more calcareous south-western (SW) locations. Fen species richness correlated significantly with surrounding species richness in the NE locations, whereas no correlation was found for the SW locations. Fens in SW locations are characterized by both intense tufa formation, which creates extreme ecological conditions, and the contrasting environmental conditions compared to surrounding grasslands. We demonstrated that the mass effect does not always significantly shape the species composition of island habitats and that the landscape species pool may not influence extreme habitats. This finding accords with the Intermediate difference hypothesis, which predicts a unimodal relationship between the strength of the spatial mass effect and the ecological similarity between neighbouring plots, and could be utilized in the selection of model habitats for exploring large-scale ecological phenomena without the possibly confounding spatial mass effects.

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Cover Community Ecology
Community Ecology An Interdisciplinary Journal Reporting Progress in Community and Population Studies
Print ISSN:
1585-8553
Online ISSN:
1588-2756

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Community Ecology
Language English
Size A4
Year of
Foundation		 2000
Volumes
per Year		 1
Issues
per Year		 3
Founder Akadémiai Kiadó
Founder's
Address		 H-1117 Budapest, Hungary 1516 Budapest, PO Box 245
Publisher Akadémiai Kiadó
Springer Nature Switzerland AG
Publisher's
Address		 H-1117 Budapest, Hungary 1516 Budapest, PO Box 245.
CH-6330 Cham, Switzerland Gewerbestrasse 11.
Responsible
Publisher		 Chief Executive Officer, Akadémiai Kiadó
ISSN 1585-8553 (Print)
ISSN 1588-2756 (Online)

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