Development of secondary woodland in oak wood pastures reduces the richness of rare epiphytic lichens.

ABSTRACT: Wooded pastures with ancient trees were formerly abundant throughout Europe, but during the last century, grazing has largely been abandoned often resulting in dense forests. Ancient trees constitute habitat for many declining and threatened species, but the effects of secondary woodland on the biodiversity associated with these trees are largely unknown. We tested for difference in species richness, occurrence, and abundance of a set of nationally and regionally red-listed epiphytic lichens between ancient oaks located in secondary woodland and ancient oaks located in open conditions. We refined the test of the effect of secondary woodland by also including other explanatory variables. Species occurrence and abundance were modelled jointly using overdispersed zero-inflated Poisson models.

SUBMITTER: Paltto H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3178531 | biostudies-literature | 2011

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature