Direct and indirect effects of management intensity and environmental factors on the functional diversity of lichens in central european forests

Boch, Steffen; Saiz, Hugo; Allan, Eric; Schall, Peter; Prati, Daniel; Schulze, Ernst-Detlef; Hessenmöller, Dominik; Sparrius, Laurens B.; Fischer, Markus (2021). Direct and indirect effects of management intensity and environmental factors on the functional diversity of lichens in central european forests. Microorganisms, 9(2) MDPI 10.3390/microorganisms9020463

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Using 642 forest plots from three regions in Germany, we analyzed the direct and indirect effects of forest management intensity and of environmental variables on lichen functional diversity (FDis). Environmental stand variables were affected by management intensity and acted as an environmental filter: summing direct and indirect effects resulted in a negative total effect of conifer cover on FDis, and a positive total effect of deadwood cover and standing tree biomass. Management intensity had a direct positive effect on FDis, which was compensated by an indirect negative effect via reduced standing tree biomass and lichen species richness, resulting in a negative total effect on FDis and the FDis of adaptation-related traits (FDisAd). This indicates environmental filtering of management and stronger niche partitioning at a lower intensity. In contrast, management intensity had a positive total effect on the FDis of reproduction-, dispersal-and establishment-related traits (FDisRe), mainly because of the direct negative effect of species richness, indicating functional over-redundancy, i.e., most species cluster into a few over-represented functional entities. Our findings have important implications for forest management: high lichen functional diversity can be conserved by promoting old, site-typical deciduous forests with a high richness of woody species and large deadwood quantity. © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

08 Faculty of Science > Department of Biology > Institute of Plant Sciences (IPS) > Plant Ecology
10 Strategic Research Centers > Centre for Development and Environment (CDE)
08 Faculty of Science > Department of Biology > Institute of Plant Sciences (IPS)
08 Faculty of Science > Department of Biology > Institute of Plant Sciences (IPS) > Biodiversity

UniBE Contributor:

Saiz Bustamante, Hugo, Allan, Eric, Prati, Daniel, Fischer, Markus

Subjects:

500 Science > 580 Plants (Botany)

ISSN:

2076-2607

Publisher:

MDPI

Language:

English

Submitter:

Peter Alfred von Ballmoos-Haas

Date Deposited:

01 Apr 2021 13:58

Last Modified:

14 Mar 2023 21:00

Publisher DOI:

10.3390/microorganisms9020463

PubMed ID:

33672221

Uncontrolled Keywords:

beech forest; conifer forest; environmental filtering; forest management intensity; functional trait; habitat heterogeneity; lichen functional diversity; over-redundancy; structural equation modeling; temperate forest

BORIS DOI:

10.7892/boris.153483

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/153483

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