Land‐Use Impacts on Plant Functional Diversity Throughout Europe

ABSTRACT Aim Global biodiversity loss resulting from anthropogenic land‐use activities is a pressing concern, requiring precise assessments of impacts at large spatial extents. Existing models mainly focus on species richness and abundance, lacking insights into ecological mechanisms and species' roles in ecosystem functioning. To bridge this gap, we conducted an extensive analysis of the impact of human land use on vascular plant functional diversity across diverse land‐use classes and bioregions in Europe, comparing it to traditional metrics. Location Europe. Time Period 1992–2019. Major Taxa Studied Vascular plants. Methods Integrating extensive databases of vegetation plots with spatial data on land use and land cover, we paired plots from areas actively used and modified by humans with plots from natural habitats under similar environmental conditions. Using species occurrences and traits, in each plot we computed three complementary functional diversity metrics (functional richness, evenness and divergence), species richness and abundance. We assessed the impact of land use by comparing the metrics in the paired plots. Results Our findings revealed that, compared to natural habitats, anthropogenic land use exhibits lower functional richness and divergence but higher functional evenness across most land‐use classes and bioregions. The response of functional richness was more marked than the other two metrics and especially pronounced in croplands and urban areas and in northern bioregions. Functional richness exhibited a pattern that did not fully overlap with the trend in species richness, providing useful complementary information. Main Conclusions We provide a large‐scale precise assessment of anthropogenic land‐use impacts on functional diversity across Europe. Our findings indicate that: (i) human disturbance significantly alters plant functional diversity compared to natural habitats; (ii) this alteration goes in the direction of functional homogenisation within sites; (iii) functional diversity metrics complement traditional metrics by offering deeper insights into the ecological mechanisms in response to anthropogenic land use.

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Publication Details

Journal
Global Ecology and Biogeography
Published
2024-12-13
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.13947
Citations
10
Primary Topic
Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
6.91

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article

Land‐Use Impacts on Plant Functional Diversity Throughout Europe

Irene Martín‐Forés, Tetiana Dziuba, Domas Uogintas, Stephan Pfister et al.
10 citations
Global Ecology and Biogeography
Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies
6.91
article

Land‐Use Impacts on Plant Functional Diversity Throughout Europe

Irene Martín‐Forés, Tetiana Dziuba, Domas Uogintas, Stephan Pfister, W.A. Ozinga, Chaeho Byun, Josep Peñuelas, Steffen Boch, Peter M. van Bodegom, Ülo Niinemets, Bruno Hérault, Francesco María Sabatini, Franziska Schrodt, Francesca Rosa, Emmanuel Garbolino, Stefanie Hellweg, Milan Chytrý, Gabriella Damasceno, Michele Dalle Fratte, Renata Ćušterevska, Gwendolyn Peyre, Jonathan Lenoir, Idoia Biurrun, Jiří Doležal, Laura Scherer
article en
10 citations

Abstract

ABSTRACT Aim Global biodiversity loss resulting from anthropogenic land‐use activities is a pressing concern, requiring precise assessments of impacts at large spatial extents. Existing models mainly focus on species richness and abundance, lacking insights into ecological mechanisms and species' roles in ecosystem functioning. To bridge this gap, we conducted an extensive analysis of the impact of human land use on vascular plant functional diversity across diverse land‐use classes and bioregions in Europe, comparing it to traditional metrics. Location Europe. Time Period 1992–2019. Major Taxa Studied Vascular plants. Methods Integrating extensive databases of vegetation plots with spatial data on land use and land cover, we paired plots from areas actively used and modified by humans with plots from natural habitats under similar environmental conditions. Using species occurrences and traits, in each plot we computed three complementary functional diversity metrics (functional richness, evenness and divergence), species richness and abundance. We assessed the impact of land use by comparing the metrics in the paired plots. Results Our findings revealed that, compared to natural habitats, anthropogenic land use exhibits lower functional richness and divergence but higher functional evenness across most land‐use classes and bioregions. The response of functional richness was more marked than the other two metrics and especially pronounced in croplands and urban areas and in northern bioregions. Functional richness exhibited a pattern that did not fully overlap with the trend in species richness, providing useful complementary information. Main Conclusions We provide a large‐scale precise assessment of anthropogenic land‐use impacts on functional diversity across Europe. Our findings indicate that: (i) human disturbance significantly alters plant functional diversity compared to natural habitats; (ii) this alteration goes in the direction of functional homogenisation within sites; (iii) functional diversity metrics complement traditional metrics by offering deeper insights into the ecological mechanisms in response to anthropogenic land use.

Global Ecology and BiogeographyVol. 34(1)
Gyeongguk National University (KR), University of Insubria (IT), Leiden University (NL), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR), Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement (FR), University of Nottingham (GB), National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (UA), Universidad de Los Andes (CO), University of the Basque Country (ES), Estonian University of Life Sciences (EE), Université de Montpellier (FR), Czech University of Life Sciences Prague (CZ), Masaryk University (CZ), Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (CH), German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (DE), University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice (CZ), ETH Zurich (CH), Ecologie et Dynamique des Systèmes Anthropisés (FR), Forests and Societies (FR), Centre for Research on Ecology and Forestry Applications (ES), Czech Academy of Sciences, Institute of Botany (CZ), Nature Research Centre (LT), M.G. Kholodny Institute of Botany (UA), Global Ecology Unit CREAF-CSIC-UAB, Université de Picardie Jules Verne (FR), The University of Adelaide (AU), Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (DE), Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje (MK), Wageningen University & Research (NL), University of Bologna (IT)
National Research Foundation, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Grantová Agentura České Republiky, Eusko Jaurlaritza, National Research Foundation of Korea, Ministry of Science and ICT, South Korea, Deutsches Zentrum für integrative Biodiversitätsforschung Halle-Jena-Leipzig, Ministero dell'Università e della Ricerca
Life in Land
Openalex Percentile: Top 3%
Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies
6.91
DOIOpen Access PDFOpenAlex
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