Floristic diversity in the transition from traditional to modern land-use in southern Sweden A.D. 1800–2008
2012
Fredh, Daniel | Broström, Anna | Zillén, Lovisa | Mazier, Florence | Rundgren, Mats | Lagerås, Per.
We aim to provide a long-term ecological analysis of land-use and floristic diversity in the transition from traditional to modern land-use management in the time A.D. 1800–2008 in southern Sweden. We use the Regional Estimates of Vegetation Abundance from Large Sites (REVEALS) model to quantify land-cover changes on a regional scale at 20-year intervals, based on the fossil pollen record. Floristic richness and evenness are estimated using palynological richness and the Shannon index applied to the REVEALS output, respectively. We identified a transition period of 60 years between 1880 and 1940 when the total tree cover increased and the tree composition changed from deciduous to coniferous dominance. Within the shrinking area of open land, arable land taxa expanded, while the number and coverage of herbs in the remaining grasslands decreased. The succession from open grasslands to more tree-covered habitats initially favoured palynological richness, which reached its highest values during the first 40 years of the transition period. The highest REVEALS-based evenness was recorded in the time of traditional land-use and at the beginning of the transition period, reflecting higher habitat diversity at these time intervals. Our results support a more dynamic ecosystem management that changes between traditional land-use and phases of succession (<40 years) to promote floristic diversity. We have developed and applied a palaeoecological methodology that contributes realistic estimates to be used in ecosystem management.
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