Abstract
The ecology and species diversity of ephemeral wetland vegetation have been fairly well studied, but the biology of its characteristic species has rarely been investigated holistically. Here we combine previous results on the genetic diversity of a suitable model species (the diploid Cyperus fuscus) with new data on its historical and recent occurrence, its ecological and climatic niche, and the associated vegetation. Analysis of phytosociological relevés from Central Europe revealed a broad ecological niche of C. fuscus with an optimum in the Isoëto-Nanojuncetea class, extending to several other vegetation types. Overall species composition in the relevés highlight C. fuscus as a potential indicator of habitat conditions suitable for a range of other threatened taxa. Analysis of historical records of C. fuscus from the Czech Republic showed an increasing trend in the number of localities since the 1990s. It seems that recent climate warming allows the thermophilous C. fuscus to expand its range into colder regions. Isoëto-Nanojuncetea and Bidentetea species are well represented in the soil seed bank in both riverine and anthropogenic habitats of C. fuscus. Vegetation diversity has a weak negative effect and anthropogenic (compared to riverine) habitats have a strong negative effect on genetic diversity in this species.
Highlights
Wetlands and their biota currently suffer under multiple threats including global eutrophication, climate change, direct habitat destruction, and land use change [1,2,3,4]
All species emerging from the soil samples were recorded and C. fuscus plants germinated from the soil seed bank were collected for the phenotypic and genetic analysis [27,28]
As a large part of the relevés with Cyperus fuscus from the phytosociological databases lacked any environmental data, such as habitat type, type of substrate, or substrate moisture, we could only classify the relevés into the predefined syntaxa, describe the overall species composition of the vegetation, and analyze how it is influenced by the year of sampling and environmental variables expressed as Ellenberg indicator values (EIVs)
Summary
Wetlands and their biota currently suffer under multiple threats including global eutrophication, climate change, direct habitat destruction, and land use change [1,2,3,4]. Sometimes called mudflat plants and usually classified within the syntaxonomic class Isoëto-Nanojuncetea [8], are a group of organisms with population frequency and/or density strongly fluctuating according to the conditions of the given growing season, temperature and precipitation [9]. Mudflat plants possessing persistent soil seed banks may balance the loss of a part of their populations in the years with unfavorable conditions. As it is not realistic to study all of these species in detail in a short period of time, we decided to select a model that could be used to explain processes in vegetation and soil seed banks, including genetic aspects, in ecologically similar species. The methodology we adapted to Cyperus fuscus could be used as a standardized protocol in studies of other short-lived wetland species
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