Skip to main content

The contribution of common and rare species to plant species richness patterns: the effect of habitat type and size of sampling unit

Mazaris, Antonios D., Tzanopoulos, Joseph, Kallimanis, Athanasios S., Matsinos, Yiannis G., Sgardelis, Stephanos P., Pantis, John D. (2008) The contribution of common and rare species to plant species richness patterns: the effect of habitat type and size of sampling unit. Biodiversity and Conservation, 17 (14). pp. 3567-3577. ISSN 0960-3115. (doi:10.1007/s10531-008-9480-7) (The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided) (KAR id:30028)

The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided.
Official URL:
http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1007/s10531-008-9480-7

Abstract

Understanding how overall patterns of spatial variation in species richness are affected by distributional patterns of species has been an area of growing concern. In the present study, we investigated the relative importance of common and rare species as contributors in overall plant species richness. We further examined if the effects of common or rare species in richness patterns are affected by the size of the sampling units and if the observed patterns hold at different habitats. We used a dataset of 5,148 higher plant species distributed across 16,114 sampling plots located in 240 sites of the NATURA 2000 network of Greece. We ranked all species based on the number of sites they occupied and we developed a common to rare and a rare to common sequence. We correlated those sequences with cumulative species distributions. We performed this analysis in nine different sizes of sampling units and in three different datasets referring to (a) all habitat types together, (b) coniferous habitats only and (c) alpine habitats only. Our analysis showed that despite the proportionally higher numbers of restricted species, widespread species make a greater contribution to overall richness patterns and that this observed pattern does not depend on the size of the sampling units. Moreover, the observed pattern stands for different habitat types. Our findings support the generality of this pattern and highlight the importance of widespread species as adequate indicators of biodiversity patterns at various habitat types.

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.1007/s10531-008-9480-7
Uncontrolled keywords: Species richness, Sampling unit size, Commonness, Rarity, Distribution pattern, Frequency distribution, NATURA 2000 network
Subjects: Q Science > QH Natural history > QH541 Ecology
Q Science > QH Natural history > QH75 Conservation (Biology)
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Human and Social Sciences > School of Anthropology and Conservation
Depositing User: Joseph Tzanopoulos
Date Deposited: 24 Nov 2014 11:03 UTC
Last Modified: 16 Nov 2021 10:08 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/30028 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

University of Kent Author Information

  • Depositors only (login required):

Total unique views for this document in KAR since July 2020. For more details click on the image.