European Flora Research Articles

Taxonomy and distribution of Macrosciadium alatum (Bieb.) V. Tichomirov and Lavrova (Apiaceae): A new alien species in the flora of Europe

The paper presents the taxonomical position and the description of the characteristic features of <em>Macrosciadium alatum</em> (=<em>Ligusticum alatum</em>). The species was recorded in the Western Bieszczady Mts (the northern part of the Carpathians) in July 2007 and is new to the flora of Europe. Its natural range comprises mainly the Caucasus region and the origin of <em>M. alatum</em> in south-east Poland is quite puzzling. The species has most likely been deliberatelly brought into the area. <em>M. alatum</em> spreads quite intensively. It penetrates semi-natural vegetation systems and seems to be expansive.

The most common plant species in temperate Europe based on frequency of occurrences in the national grid mapping projects

AbstractThe lists of the top 100 most common plant species in the floras of nine regions (northern Scotland, southern England, southern Germany, northern Germany, Poland, Estonia, Vladimir Oblast (Russia) with Norway and Switzerland forming an outer group) were analyzed. These lists are based on either national or regional floristic grid mapping projects. The general ranking of species within the united list is based on two criteria – the number of floras where the species is one of the top 100 most common species and the sum of ranks within these floras. Trifolium repens, Achillea millefolium, and Urtica dioica should be regarded as the most common native species all over temperate Europe, while Matricaria discoidea and Erigeron canadensis are the most successful aliens here. The alien plant species contribute significantly less in the European flora and vegetation rather than the most successful natives (© 2010 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)

Sicyos angulatus

<i>Sicyos angulatus</i>

P15 Maternal mortality due to arterial hypertension in São Paulo City (Brazil)

Relationships between seed germination response to plant-derived smoke and various plant traits (habitat requirements, life form, seed morphology, seed bank type) were analysed for 97 species of the Hungarian flora using published data. It was hypothesized that smoke-responsive species – those displaying enhanced germination in response to smoke – differ from non-responsive species – smoke having an indifferent or inhibitory effect on germination – in habitat requirements and/or certain life history traits. To our knowledge, no such comparison has previously been reported for a European flora. We found that species indicating disturbance and those preferring soils rich or moderately rich in nitrogen were more frequent in the smoke-responsive group (80% and 41%, respectively) than in the non-responsive group, while the non-responsive group contained a high percentage of natural species (i.e. species dominant or characteristic in natural plant communities; 47%) and species indicative of nutrient poor (38%) or (sub)mesotrophic (38%) soils. Annuals or biennials (67%) dominated the smoke-responsive group, whereas in the non-responsive group these short-lived species and perennial herbs were equally abundant (43% each). There was a tendency for higher frequency of long-term persistent seed bank among smoke-responsive species (78%) than in the non-responsive group (54%). These findings suggest that smoke-stimulated germination is associated with only a few specific plant traits for species from a semiarid temperate region of Europe, but highlight the frequent occurrence of smoke-enhanced germination among short-lived, nitrophilous or disturbance tolerant species. These results can contribute to a better understanding of post-fire regeneration of plant communities, and could also be considered during vegetation restoration or weed management.

P13 The recurrence risk of severe de novo preeclampsia in singleton pregnancies: a population-based cohort

Relationships between seed germination response to plant-derived smoke and various plant traits (habitat requirements, life form, seed morphology, seed bank type) were analysed for 97 species of the Hungarian flora using published data. It was hypothesized that smoke-responsive species – those displaying enhanced germination in response to smoke – differ from non-responsive species – smoke having an indifferent or inhibitory effect on germination – in habitat requirements and/or certain life history traits. To our knowledge, no such comparison has previously been reported for a European flora. We found that species indicating disturbance and those preferring soils rich or moderately rich in nitrogen were more frequent in the smoke-responsive group (80% and 41%, respectively) than in the non-responsive group, while the non-responsive group contained a high percentage of natural species (i.e. species dominant or characteristic in natural plant communities; 47%) and species indicative of nutrient poor (38%) or (sub)mesotrophic (38%) soils. Annuals or biennials (67%) dominated the smoke-responsive group, whereas in the non-responsive group these short-lived species and perennial herbs were equally abundant (43% each). There was a tendency for higher frequency of long-term persistent seed bank among smoke-responsive species (78%) than in the non-responsive group (54%). These findings suggest that smoke-stimulated germination is associated with only a few specific plant traits for species from a semiarid temperate region of Europe, but highlight the frequent occurrence of smoke-enhanced germination among short-lived, nitrophilous or disturbance tolerant species. These results can contribute to a better understanding of post-fire regeneration of plant communities, and could also be considered during vegetation restoration or weed management.

Saving Europe’s threatened flora: progress towards GSPC Target 8 in Europe

The European flora is of global significance but many species are facing an ever increasing range of threats, especially the growing impacts of climate change. While various estimates have been made for the number of threatened plant species in Europe, an up-to-date European plant Red List does not presently exist. Target 8 of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC) calls for 60% of threatened plant species to be conserved in ex situ collections by 2010. In the absence of a European plant Red List, it is difficult to monitor progress at the regional level towards this target. To address this gap Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI) has developed a consolidated list of European threatened species as a step towards a formal Red List. The database consists of national Red List data from 28 European countries and includes records for over 11,000 taxa. National Red List data were supplemented by information on the critically endangered plants of Europe provided by the Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle/European Topic Centre on Biological Diversity and the Conservatoire Botanique National de Brest. A list of regionally threatened species was extracted from the database and screened against BGCI’s database of plants in cultivation in botanic gardens (PlantSearch) and ENSCONET’s (European Native Seed Conservation Network) database of plants conserved in European seed banks. This analysis revealed that 42% of European threatened species are currently included in ex situ conservation programmes in Europe.

The phylogeography of an alpine leaf beetle: Divergence within Oreinaelongata spans several ice ages

The genetic landscape of the European flora and fauna was shaped by the ebb and flow of populations with the shifting ice during Quaternary climate cycles. While this has been well demonstrated for lowland species, less is known about high altitude taxa. Here we analyze the phylogeography of the leaf beetle Oreina elongata from 20 populations across the Alps and Apennines. Three mitochondrial and one nuclear region were sequenced in 64 individuals. Within an mtDNA phylogeny, three of seven subspecies are monophyletic. The species is chemically defended and aposematic, with green and blue forms showing geographic variation and unexpected within-population polymorphism. These warning colors show pronounced east–west geographical structure in distribution, but the phylogeography suggests repeated origin and loss. Basal clades come from the central Alps. Ancestors of other clades probably survived across northern Italy and the northern Adriatic, before separation of eastern, southern and western populations and rapid spread through the western Alps. After reviewing calibrated gene-specific substitution rates in the literature, we use partitioned Bayesian coalescent analysis to date our phylogeography. The major clades diverged long before the last glacial maximum, suggesting that O. elongata persisted many glacial cycles within or at the edges of the Alps and Apennines. When analyzing additional barcoding pairwise distances, we find strong evidence to consider O. elongata as a species complex rather than a single species.

A neotaphonomic experiment in pollen oxidation and its implications for archaeopalynology

Oxidation is considered to be a major taphonomic process involved in differential pollen preservation. An experimental protocol has been developed in the laboratory to test the impact of oxidation on pollen concentrations. Seven modern pollen taxa were selected among common trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants from the European flora, with regard to their typical pollen morphology ( Pinus, Alnus, deciduous Quercus, Cichorioideae, Caryophyllaceae, Ericaceae and Poaceae). An aqueous solution of potassium permanganate (KMnO 4) was used to oxidise the pollen grains. The impact of oxidation was measured as a function of increasing oxidation intensity and increasing exposure time. For each taxon, the pollen concentration (grains µl − 1) was measured following each oxidation stage. The results show that all pollen taxa are affected by oxidation. Both low oxidant concentrations and short oxidation exposure times led to a fast decrease in pollen concentrations. The thickness of the exine and a specific morphology appear to be the deciding factors controlling the ability to withstand oxidation. A simulation of the impact of oxidation was performed on two model pollen spectra simulating a forested and an open environment. Significant differences were recorded between the initial and final pollen rates. The AP/NAP ratio is modified to a greater extent in the spectrum associated with the open environment. However, over-representation of a specific taxon in a pollen spectrum cannot be attributed to the impact of oxidation alone. For instance, when Cichorioideae are recorded with high frequencies in pollen analyses carried out in an archaeological context, oxidation should not be regarded as the only taphonomic process responsible for this over-representation. The differential conservation of pollen is a complex process in which oxidation represents but one of a variety of interacting taphonomic factors (such as pollen transport, bacterial activity, temperature, pH, hygrometry).

Plant extinctions and introductions lead to phylogenetic and taxonomic homogenization of the European flora

Human activities have altered the composition of biotas through two fundamental processes: native extinctions and alien introductions. Both processes affect the taxonomic (i.e., species identity) and phylogenetic (i.e., species evolutionary history) structure of species assemblages. However, it is not known what the relative magnitude of these effects is at large spatial scales. Here we analyze the large-scale effects of plant extinctions and introductions on taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity of floras across Europe, using data from 23 regions. Considering both native losses and alien additions in concert reveals that plant invasions since AD 1500 exceeded extinctions, resulting in (i) increased taxonomic diversity (i.e., species richness) but decreased phylogenetic diversity within European regions, and (ii) increased taxonomic and phylogenetic similarity among European regions. Those extinct species were phylogenetically and taxonomically unique and typical of individual regions, and extinctions usually were not continent-wide and therefore led to differentiation. By contrast, because introduced alien species tended to be closely related to native species, the floristic differentiation due to species extinction was lessened by taxonomic and phylogenetic homogenization effects. This was especially due to species that are alien to a region but native to other parts of Europe. As a result, floras of many European regions have partly lost and will continue to lose their uniqueness. The results suggest that biodiversity needs to be assessed in terms of both species taxonomic and phylogenetic identity, but the latter is rarely used as a metric of the biodiversity dynamics.

Digitaria ciliarisin Europe

Wilhalm T.: Digitaria ciliaris in Europe. — Willdenowia 39: 247–259. — Online ISSN 1868-6397; © 2009 BGBM Berlin-Dahlem doi:10.3372/wi.39.39203 (available via http//dx.doi.org/)A survey of the current treatment of the allochthonous grass Digitaria ciliaris and of its actual distribution in Europe is offered. It is based on a comprehensive revision of vouchers from selected European herbaria and on a literature survey carried out with the goal of collecting additional reports and of reviewing the treatment of the species in national and regional European floras. The results suggest that D. ciliaris is still not well known in Europe and thus overlooked in many areas, particularly in Italy and Spain. First records or at least definitely confirmed records are given for Portugal, Montenegro and Turkey, as well as for several regions of Spain, Italy and Greece. Substantial evidence is provided that D. ciliaris is naturalized in large areas of S Europe, particularly along the Mediterranean coasts of the Iberian Peninsula, Italy and Greece, including the islands. Diagnostic morphological features of D. ciliaris are described in order to better understand the species and an elaborated key is provided to distinguish it from the very similar and common autochthonous D. sanguinalis and other allochthonous species of the D. ciliaris complex that occur or may occur in Europe as casuals.

Big moving day for biodiversity? A macroecological assessment of the scope for assisted colonization as a conservation strategy under global warming

Future climate change constitutes a major threat to Earth's biodiversity. If anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions continue unabated, 21st century climate change is likely to exceed the natural adaptive capacity of many natural ecosystems and a large proportion of species may risk extinction. A recurrent finding is that the degree of negative impact depends strongly on the dispersal potential of the species. However, there is a growing realization that many, if not most species would be unlikely to disperse as fast and far as required. As a consequence, it has been proposed that species at risk should be actively translocated into unoccupied, but environmentally suitable areas that are likely to stay suitable over the next 100 or more years (assisted colonization or assisted migration). This solution is controversial, though, reflecting negative experiences with introduced exotics and probably also the traditional emphasis in conservation management on preserving a certain local, often historical situation with a static species composition, and a tendency among ecologists to think of biological communities as generally saturated with species. Using the European flora as a case study, we here estimate the main environmental controls of plant species richness, assess how the maximum observed species richness depends on these environmental controls, and based here on estimate how many species could at least be added to an area before further species additions would perhaps inevitably lead to corresponding losses locally. Our results suggest that there is substantial room for additional plant species across most areas of Europe, indicating that there is considerable scope for implementing assisted colonization as a proactive conservation strategy under global warming without necessarily implicating negative effects on the native flora in the areas targeted for establishment of translocated populations. Notably, our results suggest that 50% of the cells in Northern Europe, the likely target area for many translocations, could harbor at least 1/3 as many additional species as they have native species. However, we also emphasize that other, more traditional conservation strategies should also be strengthened, notably providing more space for nature and reducing nitrogen deposition to increase population resilience and facilitate unassisted colonization. Furthermore, any implementation of assisted colonization should be done cautiously, with a careful analysis on a species-by-species case.

Preliminary account of plant mesofossils from the Maastrichtian Budurone microvertebrate site of the Haţeg Basin, Romania

The Maastrichtian Budurone mesofossil flora includes 19 different types of angiosperm fruits and seeds. All fruits and seeds are small, 0.6–2.6 mm long and 0.5–1.9 mm broad, with calculated fruit volume ranging between 0.08 and 3.59 mm 3 and seed volume between 0.08 and 0.79 mm 3. The fossils show great similarity with other Cretaceous angiosperm fossils regarding their dimension and organisation. However, comparison with other Late Cretaceous and Early Cenozoic floras from Europe shows that surprisingly few of the Budurone fossils can be assigned to taxa previously described from Europe, and so far only a few taxa appear to be shared with other mesofossil floras. This indicates that the Budurone flora may have been isolated from the other European floras or represents a different kind of depositional environment. Fruits are mainly indehiscent nuts and drupes, and seeds are mostly anatropous without special ornamentation indicating a mixture of biotic and unassisted dispersal. This together with the small size of the fruits and seeds indicates that the Budurone plants grew in typical Late Cretaceous open vegetation perhaps under a seasonally dry climate.

Confirmation of Sigillaria Brongniart as a coal‐forming plant in Cathaysia: occurrence from an Early Permian autochthonous peat‐forming flora in Inner Mongolia

AbstractA common lycopsid genus, Sigillaria Brongniart, has been recorded most frequently in peat‐forming forests in Europe and North America, but rarely in China. Although Sigillaria, in China, has been found in coal balls and used as evidence that it was a coal‐forming element, it has never been recorded as compression/impressions in peat‐forming settings. Recent investigation of an Early Permian autochthonous peat‐forming flora of the Taiyuan Formation near Wuda, Inner Mongolia, has provided evidence that Sigillaria could be a major element of peat‐forming vegetation in China. Sigillaria is the only arborescent lycopsid acting as a major contributor to peat/coal formation. The genus Sigillaria is another element that China has in common with the Palaeozoic low‐land floras of Europe and North America, enhancing the common floral aspects between the tropical swamp vegetations of the east and west regions of the Palaeotethys Ocean. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley &amp; Sons, Ltd.

CLO‐PLA: the database of clonal and bud bank traits of Central European flora§

Abstract: Clonal growth of plants is mainly a result of the vegetative growth of organs hidden beneath the soil surface and producing potentially independent vegetative offspring. Clonal traits are difficult to measure due to inaccessibility of the space they inhabit and their morphological diversity. This causes great difficulties with descriptions, standardization of measurements across plant growth forms and, probably, a lack of appropriate questions that should be answered using them. The freely available CLO‐PLA database (http://clopla.butbn.cas.cz/) can help to assess the roles of vegetative means of regeneration and spread in plant communities under the effect of various biotic and abiotic filters. It can serve as a source of reference on persistence traits of European temperate flora and, eventually, as a guide for trait sampling in other regions of the world.

Predicting future shifts in species diversity

It is both an exciting and challenging time to be an ecologist. It is reasonable to say that our science has never before been confronted by such threats to biological diversity caused by global changes in land use and climate, nor advanced so fast to meet them. The pace of discovery has accelerated incredibly, and the recent ‘‘Danish Biodiversity Information Facility (DanBIF) International Conference on Biodiversity Informatics and Climate Change’’ was a remarkable landmark on the journey. The conference was jointly organized by DanBIF / , the Dept of Biological Sciences, Aarhus Univ., and the Dept of Biology, Copenhagen Univ., and held at Aarhus Univ. in Denmark 5 6 April, 2008. The aim of the conference was to bring world-leading scientists in the biodiversity informatics field together to provide a state-of-the-art overview of current and potential future climate change impacts on biodiversity. Biodiversity and ecosystems are already changing at unprecedented rates, and that pace could accelerate further in the 21st century due to global warming and other anthropogenic changes in the global environment (Sala et al. 2000, Fischlin et al. 2007). Thematically the conference focused hard on the roles of past and present climate as determinants of biodiversity as well as the potential biodiversity impacts of the anticipated climates of the near future, while acknowledging their possible lack of past analogs (Williams et al. 2007). These issues are the kind of complex broad-scale problems that are difficult to study by the traditional experimental approaches, motivating the macroecological research theme in common to all papers included here. We are pleased to present six papers from the DanBIF International Conference on Biodiversity Informatics and Climate Change in this issue of Ecography. Predicting how species diversity will respond to climate change is critical for conservation planning in the 21st century. Success in this area hinges on both conceptual and methodological advances in how we approach these problems. But success will not come easily and ignoring the past will not help predict the future: several papers provide evidence that past climate changes have left longlasting legacies in the geographic diversity patterns. Stropp et al. (2009) use an extensive data set of tree inventory plots spread across the Amazon Basin and Guiana Shield to elucidate the drivers of tropical tree diversity and find evidence that paleoclimatic stability is a key control of regional-scale diversity. Svenning et al. (2009) provide evidence for strong geographic heterogeneity in the species richness environment relationships in the European flora and discuss their linkage to Plio-Pleistocene climate change. Confidence in projections of the future distributions of species requires demonstration that recently-observed changes can be predicted adequately. Willis et al. (2009) use a dynamic spatially-explicit population modelling framework to demonstrate that recent changes at the expanding northern boundaries of three butterfly species can be predicted with good accuracy. In the line with the two previously mentioned studies, but at a smaller spatiotemporal scale Willis et al. (2009) find that each species’ distribution prior to expansion was critical in determining the exact spatial pattern of the current distribution. Willis et al. (2009) also show that realistic representation of dispersal is of key importance for modelling future range shifts. This issue is also a focus of the study by Engler et al. (2009): here, the authors carried out projections of future distribution over the 21st century for 287 mountain plant species in a study area of the western Swiss Alps using the often used unlimited and no dispersal scenarios and two more realistic scenarios, and conclude that the more realistic dispersal simulations produced results that were significantly closer to unlimited dispersal than to no dispersal. Baselga and Araujo (2009) investigate approaches to predicting biotic responses to changing environmental conditions, distinguising between community response models and species-based models. Algar et al. (2009) use global change as a pseudoexperiment, testing whether spatial relationships linking climate to butterfly species richness are able to predict how richness changed during the climate changes observed in the 20th century. Surprisingly, this approach proves at least as effective as species distribution models, suggesting both a new way to predict biodiversity responses to global change and that spatial macroecological relationships can truly be causative. These studies produce a strong consensus that accurate predictions of future shifts in species diversity will demand more sophistication than simple projections of species’ climatic niche space. Fortunately, these papers also advance the theoretical framework necessary to move the field beyond its correlative first principles and into a realm where both theory and empirical discovery can inform Ecography 32: 3 4, 2009 doi: 10.1111/j.1600-0587.2009.06024.x # 2009 The Authors. Journal compilation # 2009 Ecography

The European Garden Flora: A Manual for the Identification of Plants Cultivated in Europe, Both Out-of-Doors and Under Glass, Volume 6; Dicotyledons (Part IV), Loganiaceae to Compositae

The European Garden Flora: A Manual for the Identification of Plants Cultivated in Europe, Both Out-of-Doors and Under Glass, Volume 6; Dicotyledons (Part IV), Loganiaceae to Compositae

Vascular Plants from the Old Walls in Kystendil (Southwestern Bulgaria)

ABSTRACTThe aim of this study is to establish species diversity, the conformities and trends about the origin and variability of the wall flora in the central city part of Kystendil, The study area is National architectural reserve, located in the border of the old fortress wall on antique Pautalia and medieval Velbuzhd. The study is carried out for two periods 1998–2001 and 2007–2008. During the study are determined total 122 taxa (on walls and their neighboring area): Magnoliophyta (110), Polypodiophyta (5) and Bryophyta (7). With most participation are families Fabaceae (20), Poaceae (18), Asteraceae (10), Caryophyllaceae (6), Lamiaceae (5), Rosaceae (5), etc. Hemicriptophytes and therophytes are prevailed. The number of annual species is bigger on the wall surface, while perennials are typical for the wall base and neighbouring area. From the base to top of walls, the species diversity decrease and the percent of typical rock xerophytes arise. The northern exposure of the walls causes more rich flora and vegetation. New species for the floristic region are Petrorhagia glumacea, Eleusine indica, Bromus tectorum and Rumex crispus. The dominant floristic elements are Eur-Med-Orient, Eur-Med-Orient-Tur and Eur-Med- Orient-Cauc. As a result the wall flora shows characteristics similar to European and Mediterranean wall floras. Plants from old walls are additional ornamental element and contribute to the complete perceive of architectural and historical objects. Threes effect negatively wall's structure. On the base of present study are given estimation of contemporary wall's state as well as send recommendations about how to maintain old walls and their neighboring area.

The Atlantic elements in the Swiss flora: distribution, diversity, and conservation status

The purpose of this study was to examine the composition, distribution, ecology, and conservation status of the Atlantic elements of the Swiss flora. About 195 Atlantic and 80 Mediterranean–Atlantic vascular plant species of the European flora have been used as the basis for our analysis. The complete list of 3,143 taxa has been used as the reference for the Swiss flora. The distributions of the species are illustrated in coincidence maps based on the computer database of the Data Centre of the Swiss Flora in Geneva, Switzerland. Our study demonstrates clearly that the Atlantic flora of Europe requires a new biogeographical appraisal. The Swiss flora comprises 66 Atlantic and Mediterranean–Atlantic taxa, which are taxonomically and ecologically highly diverse. Switzerland contains 44% of all European Sub-Atlantic plants. This confirms the Sub-Atlantic geographical position of Switzerland. Only one Eu-Atlantic species growing in Switzerland, Vicia orobus, can be classified as native with certainty. This species is critically endangered and merits the highest conservation priority. Although a very alpine country, Switzerland has a relatively large number of Mediterranean–Atlantic species. The Atlantic and Mediterranean–Atlantic plants are a very threatened group in Switzerland, with wetland plants the most imperilled ecological group.

The LEDA Traitbase: a database of life‐history traits of the Northwest European flora

1 An international group of scientists has built an open internet data base of life-history traits of the Northwest European flora (the LEDA-Traitbase) that can be used as a data source for fundamental research on plant biodiversity and coexistence, macro-ecological patterns and plant functional responses. 2 The species-trait matrix comprises referenced information under the control of an editorial board, for ca. 3000 species of the Northwest European flora, combining existing information and additional measurements. The data base currently contains data on 26 plant traits that describe three key features of plant dynamics: persistence, regeneration and dispersal. The LEDA-Traitbase is freely available at http://www.leda-traitbase.org. 3 We present the structure of the data base and an overview of the trait information available. 4 Synthesis. The LEDA Traitbase is useful for large-scale analyses of functional responses of communities to environmental change, effects of community trait composition on ecosystem properties and patterns of rarity and invasiveness, as well as linkages between traits as expressions of fundamental trade-offs in plants.

Shifting global invasive potential of European plants with climate change.

Global climate change and invasions by nonnative species rank among the top concerns for agents of biological loss in coming decades. Although each of these themes has seen considerable attention in the modeling and forecasting communities, their joint effects remain little explored and poorly understood. We developed ecological niche models for 1804 species from the European flora, which we projected globally to identify areas of potential distribution, both at present and across 4 scenarios of future (2055) climates. As expected from previous studies, projections based on the CGCM1 climate model were more extreme than those based on the HadCM3 model, and projections based on the a2 emissions scenario were more extreme than those based on the b2 emissions scenario. However, less expected were the highly nonlinear and contrasting projected changes in distributional areas among continents: increases in distributional potential in Europe often corresponded with decreases on other continents, and species seeing expanding potential on one continent often saw contracting potential on others. In conclusion, global climate change will have complex effects on invasive potential of plant species. The shifts and changes identified in this study suggest strongly that biological communities will see dramatic reorganizations in coming decades owing to shifting invasive potential by nonnative species.