Terrestrial habitat islands in the sea of croplands – Our new paper in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution

Our paper has recently been published in the Research Topic entitled 'Roles and Implications of Functional Traits and Phylogenies to Characterize Refugia Under Increasing Climate Variability' in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution.

The citation of our paper is:

Deák, B., Rádai, Z., Bátori, Z., Kelemen, A., Lukács, K., Kiss, R., Maák, I.E., Valkó, O. (2021): Ancient burial mounds provide safe havens for grassland specialist plants in transformed landscapes – A trait-based analysis. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 9: 619812. doi: 10.3389/fevo.2021.619812

The paper is open access and can be downloaded from here.

The aim of our study was to compare the functional characteristics of grassland specialist plant species in three types of lowland loess grasslands in Hungary, which serve as model grassland habitats typical of agricultural landscapes. The studied habitat types were: 1) Kurgans (i.e. millennia-old ancient burial mounds built by nomadic steppic tribes), that are ancient, relatively undisturbed, highly isolated habitat islands; 2) Verges, that are younger linear structures subjected to several types of human disturbance and 3) Extensive grasslands, that remained intact from arable farming and serve as the reference state of the studied habitat. We were curious about the plant functional traits that make specialist species able to survive in the different habitat types and also, about the community level functional diversity of the studied habitat types.

One of our most interesting result is that we found that kurgans, as terrestrial habitat islands are characterised by specialist species that are functionally similar to species inhabiting oceanic islands. In particular, species on kurgans were more self compatible, had larger seed mass and taller stature than species of verges and extensive grasslands. It is very interesting to see the similar community assembly processes on the younger and less isolated kurgans and the more ancient and more isolated oceanic islands.

Another interesting results is that lurgans and extensive grasslands were characterized by higher functional diversity (both at the level of single traits and multi-trait based functional dispersion) than the verges. This is probably due to the higher level of environmental heterogeneity (you can read about this in our earlier blog post) compared to the homogeneous environment in verges.

 

Dry grassland on the Falcon-mound, with crested wheatgrass (Agropyron cristatum).

 

Abstract

Due to the intensified land use in transformed landscapes, grassland biodiversity is often restricted to habitat fragments inadequate for arable use or for urban development. In continental parts of Eurasia, the ∼600,000 ancient burial mounds (called “kurgans”) built by nomadic tribes of the steppes are amongst the most widespread landmarks providing refuge for dry grassland species. In our study by using plant functional groups and functional traits, we aimed at gaining insight into the ecological and evolutionary processes shaping the structure and the composition of assemblages of grassland specialist plant species on kurgans embedded in the agricultural landscapes of East-Hungary. As a comparison, we also studied roadside verges and pristine extensive grasslands in the same region. We found that despite their small size, due to the lack of human disturbances and high microhabitat diversity kurgans can maintain a high species richness and percentage cover of specialists, especially when compared to verges. We revealed that assemblages of specialist plants on kurgans are characterized by traits typical to terrestrial habitat islands such as self-compatibility, large seed mass and tall stature. Kurgans and extensive grasslands were characterized by higher functional diversity (both at the level of single traits and multi-trait based functional dispersion) which is probably due to the higher level of environmental heterogeneity compared to the homogeneous environment in verges.

 * Finally, a few words about the Research Topic. The Research Topic is a thematic collection of methodological, theoretical and applied frameworks that apply functional and/or phylogenetic analyses to advance the eco-evolutionary understanding around the emergence, functioning, and dynamics of refugia. If you are interested in the Research Topic, it is worth to read the other papers published in the future.

** We also recommend another paper in the Research Topic, by Zoltán Bátori, about the functional characteristics of ant assemblages in karstic microrefugia. We thank for the lot of work of Zoltán and the colleagues at the University of Szeged, Department of Ecology; and we are happy that we could take part in this interesting study.

The citation of the paper

Bátori, Z., Lőrinczi, G., Tölgyesi, C., Módra, G., Juhász, O., Aguilon, D. J., Vojtkó, A., Valkó, O., Deák, B., Erdős, L., Maák, I. E. (2020): Karstic microrefugia host functionally specific ant assemblages. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 8: 613738. doi: 10.3389/fevo.2020.613738

This paper is also open access, and can be downloaded from here.