Effect of Soil Diversity on Forest Plant Species Abundance: A Case Study from Central-European Highlands

Pavel Samec,Jiří Volánek,Miloš Kučera,Pavel Cudlín

doi:10.3390/f12050534

Abstract

Plant distribution is most closely associated with the abiotic environment. The abiotic environment affects plant species’ abundancy unevenly. The asymmetry is further deviated by human interventions. Contrarily, soil properties preserve environmental influences from the anthropogenic perturbations. The study examined the supra-regional similarities of soil effects on plant species’ abundance in temperate forests to determine: (i) spatial relationships between soil property and forest-plant diversity among geographical regions; (ii) whether the spatial dependencies among compared forest-diversity components are influenced by natural forest representation. The spatial dependence was assessed using geographically weighted regression (GWR) of soil properties and plant species abundance from forest stands among 91 biogeographical regions in the Czech Republic (Central Europe). Regional soil properties and plant species abundance were acquired from 7550 national forest inventory plots positioned in a 4 × 4 km grid. The effect of natural forests was assessed using linear regression between the sums of squared GWR residues and protected forest distribution in the regions. Total diversity of forest plants is significantly dependent on soil-group representation. The soil-group effect is more significant than that of bedrock bodies, most of all in biogeographical regions with protected forest representation >50%. Effects of soil chemical properties were not affected by protected forest distribution. Spatial dependency analysis separated biogeographical regions of optimal forest plant diversity from those where inadequate forest-ecosystem diversity should be increased alongside soil diversity.

Highlights

Distribution of plants on Earth’s surface is most closely associated with abiotic environment diversity and most significantly conditions the diversity of other living forms
Soil-group diversity affects the diversity of forest plants in temperate conditions more than the bedrock or soil-chemical properties
Plant diversity and soil-group dependence is significant in areas with an above-average forest cover and a share of protected territories

Summary

Introduction

Distribution of plants on Earth’s surface is most closely associated with abiotic environment diversity (geodiversity) and most significantly conditions the diversity of other living forms. The relationship between terrestrial plants and geodiversity is not uniform but rather spatially differentiated along climatic transitions, soil properties and the intensity of human interventions [1]. While climate defines supra-regional differences in the relationships between geodiversity and plants, soil properties define local differences in ecosystem relationships [2]. Soil properties preserve geodiversity effects on plants, even though human interventions have disrupted ecosystem relationships. Positive soil diversity effects on the relationship tightness among general ecosystem-diversity components affected by human activities at a supra-regional level are not taken into account [3]. The total ecosystem diversity includes geo-, bio- and functional diversity. While biodiversity is formed by species abundance of life forms, functional diversity is the interconnection complexity of metabolic transfers among all ecosystem components [4]

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Conclusion