Rarity and species/area relationships of vascular plants in deciduous woods, western Norway ‐ applications to nature reserve selection

Abstract

The Rabinowitz s model of rarity was applied to a vascular plant census list from 60 deciduous woods in western Norway By applying information from distribution maps and plant sociological literature from western Norway it was possible to obtain data on geographical distribution, habitat specificity, and maximum local population size at the regional‐scale of western Norway This enabled a comparison between rarity at the local scale and rarity at the regional scale At the local scale rarity was primarily due to narrow geographic distribution At the regional scale, however, the most frequent form of rarity was due to restricted habitat specificity The species/area relationship and the SLOSS effect for the rare species at the regional scale are compared with patterns involving the total species list It is shown that a single large wood supports fewer regional‐scale rare species than do combinations of two small woods of equal area The species/area relationship for species with small population sizes at the regional scale has a different slope from the species/area relationship for all species Area is a better predictor of regional‐scale rarity than is the number of common species