Does historical land use affect the regional distribution of fleshy-fruited woody plants?

Matilda Arnell,Sara A. O. Cousins,Ove Eriksson,Jana Müllerová

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0225791

Abstract

Species richness and composition of current vegetation may reflect historical land use. We develop and examine the hypothesis that regional distribution and richness of fleshy-fruited woody plants, a group sharing life-form and dispersal system, reflect historical land use in open or semi-open habitats. Historical land use was based on maps from around the year 1900 for two regions in Sweden, and field data was gathered from surveys made in these regions. Species richness was positively related to historical land use indicated as open habitat in 1900. In one of the regions, five out of nine examined species were positively related to historical land use (with historical effect R2 ranging between 0.03 and 0.22). In the other region, we found a weaker positive relationship with historical land use in two out of nine examined species (R2 0.01 and 0.02). We conclude that current occurrence and richness of fleshy-fruited woody species is partly a legacy of historical land use, and that regions may vary in this respect. Based on a comparison between the two regions examined here, we discuss some potential causes behind this variation.

Highlights

Human land use has profoundly transformed vegetation globally [1,2,3] affecting species distributions and species diversity
Historical effects on current vegetation are interesting in their own right, for instance to understand how past land use has formed regional species pools in anthropogenic landscapes [15]
Sorbus aucuparia was the most common species in both regions, whereas the abundance ranking below S. aucuparia differed between the study regions

Summary

Introduction

Human land use has profoundly transformed vegetation globally [1,2,3] affecting species distributions and species diversity. It is generally acknowledged that legacies of historical land use on current vegetation are common [4,5,6,7]. Such legacies have been found in tropical forests [8], temperate forests and woodland [5,9,10] and in temperate grasslands [11,12,13,14]. Several authors stress that knowledge of historical effects may be important for understanding how current anthropogenic impact may shape future vegetation [6,7]

Methods

Results

Conclusion