Long-term investigations and experimental manipulations: Useful perspectives for applied vegetation studies

Abstract

By opening a digital or paper copy of this issue of Applied Vegetation Science, you may be surprised by finding a new graphical style for your familiar journal. In fact, with this 21st volume, Applied Vegetation Science is experiencing its second major restyling in its publication history, after the first in 2011. The new style adopted by Applied Vegetation Science is based on the new house style of journals published by Wiley, and has been chosen to make production smoother and quicker and to reduce the risk of errors in tables, captions and citations. The citations now follow the APA style, which is currently used in many scientific disciplines. In the near future, the new style will also allow our journals to benefit from various functions developed by Wiley for the online journal versions. We hope that the readers will like the new journal style, shared with its sister (or brother, if you prefer) Journal of Vegetation Science. We have introduced some unique features to the Wiley house style to emphasize the identity of the journal and its ownership by the International Association for Vegetation Science (IAVS). As customary for Applied Vegetation Science, as well as for Journal of Vegetation Science, we select one paper published during the previous year for the Editors' Award. Making the selection is always difficult, because the quality of the published papers is always high and constantly increasing, and there are usually several suitable candidates. This year, after a long discussion, the Chief Editors give the Editors' Award to the paper by Kapfer et al. (2017). Jutta Kapfer and colleagues provided a synthetic perspective on the challenges related to the resurvey of historical vegetation data, analysing the basic properties of these data according to the type of plot originally used and highlighting the value of these data for studying vegetation dynamics and ecosystem changes. Kapfer et al. (2017) also analysed the limitations of resurveying non-permanently marked vegetation plots, which are the most widely available plot type, according to different potential research purposes. Together with other interesting papers, the paper of Kapfer et al. (2017) was a part of the AVS Special Feature on vegetation resurvey, which was edited by Hédl, Bernhardt-Römermann, Grytnes, Jurasinski, and Ewald (2017), based on a special session they organized for the 58th IAVS Symposium in Brno (2015). The large amount of existing historical vegetation-plot data, collected in situ by generations of vegetation ecologists, is a scientific treasure. Resurvey of these plots is certainly one of the best opportunities to investigate long-term ecosystem processes, and vegetation science offers a solid background of existing data for this task (Hédl et al., 2017). We wish to thank Radim Hédl, Markus Bernhardt-Römermann, John-Arvid Grytnes, Gerald Jurasinski and Jörg Ewald (most of whom are also co-authors of the paper) for assembling such an interesting Special Feature of Applied Vegetation Science. This collection of papers is likely to become one of the most important references for future vegetation resurvey studies. Another paper we considered for the Editors' Award was also based on a long-term comparison using vegetation resurvey data (Pattison, Minderman, Boon, & Willby, 2017), although it was not part of the Special Feature edited by Hédl et al. (2017). This indicates that present vegetation science has discovered the value of data and knowledge accumulated over many decades for in-depth investigation of ecosystem processes. Pattison et al. (2017) tried to discern the roles of various environmental factors in promoting the occurrence of invasive alien plants in riparian habitats, and to understand how the interactions between changes in river flow and spread of alien species changed the abundance of native plant species and community structure. The third paper that deserves special mention is by Lessard-Therrien, Humbert, and Arlettaz (2017). This paper uses another approach with growing importance in vegetation science, namely the investigation of ecological processes by experimental manipulation of vegetation and abiotic factors. These authors investigated the effects of various intensities of fertilizer application and aerial irrigation on the taxonomic, phylogenetic and functional diversity of plants. The experiment consisted of six different treatments and demonstrated that a slight agricultural intensification of hay production might not be detrimental for plant diversity. We consider the experimental approach as one of the potentially most promising for understanding the vegetation processes in relation to management or conservation practices, a very fundamental topic for Applied Vegetation Science. In addition to the Special Feature on Vegetation Resurvey, we also published a Virtual Special Feature “Towards a consistent classification of European grasslands” in July 2017. This project started in 2013, when Applied Vegetation Science invited vegetation scientists to work towards the development of a consistent international classification of European grasslands, and to publish the results of these studies in the journal (Dengler, Bergmeier, Willner, & Chytrý, 2013). Seven original research articles were published on this topic between 2013 and 2017 and are now available as a Virtual Special Issue on the journal website. At the Editorial Meeting held during the 60th Annual Symposium of the IAVS in Palermo, June 2017, we modified the responsibilities of our team of Chief Editors of the IAVS journals. Alessandro Chiarucci replaced Milan Chytrý in the role of Receiving Editor for Applied Vegetation Science, taking on other special responsibilities for this journal, while Milan Chytrý became the Chair of the Editors of the IAVS journals. Nevertheless, the team of the four Chief Editors that are responsible for both journals, Journal of Vegetation Science and Applied Vegetation Science, remains the same and we continue our editorial work without interruption. Applied Vegetation Science will continue to publish an excellent selection of applied vegetation studies. We invite vegetation scientists from all over the world to submit their most innovative research on applied plant community ecology to Applied Vegetation Science. We offer rapid paper management, a constructive review process and high visibility of published papers. The journal is now mature, attractive and following a very positive trend! After several years, the global community of vegetation scientists will meet again in North America with the 61st Annual Symposium of the International Association for Vegetation Science being planned for Montana State University, Bozeman, Montana, USA, 22–27 July 2018. The topic of the symposium will be “Natural Ecosystems as Benchmarks for Vegetation Science”, a fundamental topic for many topical research questions, given the growing deterioration of natural habitats and ecosystems. Many other themes will be included in the symposium session, which will make it interesting also for vegetation scientists with other research interests.