Category: Behind the paper

To graze or not to graze? Historical management of hay meadows in the Carpathian Mountains

Prepared by Monika Janišová

Distribution of the seven Carpathian dairy farming systems applied between 1850 and 1950 based on a synthesis of literature data. The yellow background represents areas with regular spring grazing of fields and hay meadows. The blue background indicates the destinations of long-distance transhumance in the lowland regions.
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Should we sample vegetation following statistical rules or botanists’ experience? Possibly both!

The post provided by Nicola Alessi, Gianmaria Bonari and Piero Zannini

Italian forest types examples: A) Warm Temperate forest type represented by Quercus ilex-dominated forests in Tuscany; B) Temperate forest type represented by Fagus sylvatica-dominated forests in Northern Apennines; C) Cold Temperate forest type represented by Picea abies-dominated forests in the Alps.
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The power of seeds: the resilience of a restored plant community to fire

The post provided by Ebony Cowan

Smoke tent trail stimulating germination of the soil seedbank in restored Banksia woodlands. Photo credit: Ebony Cowan

This post refers to the article Soil seedbank development of smoke-responsive plant species in a 23-year restoration chronosequence and implications for resilience to fire by Cowan and colleagues published in Applied Vegetation Science (https://doi.org/10.1111/avsc.12713

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EIVE 1.0 – The largest system of ecological indicator values in Europe is now available

The post was provided by Jürgen Dengler, Florian Jansen & François Gillet

Geographic coverage of the 31 ecological indicator value systems that entered the calculation of the consensus system of EIVE 1.0 (image from the original article).

This Behind the paper post refers to the article Ecological Indicator Values for Europe (EIVE) 1.0 by Jürgen Dengler, Florian Jansen, Olha Chusova, Elisabeth Hüllbusch, Michael P.…

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AgriWeedClim database – a new collection of data for the study of arable habitats

The post provided by Michael Glaser & Franz Essl

Centaurea cyanus in a wheat field. This species provides ecosystem services in form of pollinators but can also cause yield loss. Photo credit: Franz Essl

This Behind the paper post refers to the article AgriWeedClim database: A repository of vegetation plot data from Central European arable habitats over 100 years by Michael Glaser, Christian Berg, Fabrizio Buldrini, Serge Buholzer, Jana Bürger, Alessandro Chiarucci, Milan Chytrý, Pavel Dřevojan, Swen Follak, Filip Küzmic, Zdenka Lososová, Stefan Meyer, Dietmar Moser, Petr Pyšek, Urban Silc, Alexander Wietzke, Stefan Dullinger, and Franz Essl, published in Applied Vegetation Science (https://doi.org/10.1111/avsc.12675

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The merits of studying oceanic island floras in a team of early career researchers

The post is provided by Dagmar Martina Hanz

View of the Tabaibal-Cardonal vegetation zone with focus on a dragon tree (Dracaena draco) near El Palmar on La Palma, Canary Islands (Photo credit: Dagmar Hanz).

This post refers to the article “High species turnover and low intraspecific trait variation in endemic and non-endemic plant species assemblages on an oceanic island” by Hanz et al.,…

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Translating a semi-supervised classification into a hierarchical expert system: Navarran grasslands demonstrate a way forward in classification approaches

The post provided by Idoia Biurrun & Jürgen Dengler

View of Beriain mountain, central Navarre (Spain). On the foreground participants in the Field Workshop walking along a stand of Potentillo-Brachypodion pinnati (Brachypodietalia pinnati, Festuco-Brometea) (Photo credit: Monika Janišová).
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What’s up, vegetation science? Thinking about the future challenges and opportunities for vegetation science from the perspective of early-career researchers

Prepared by Jonas J. Lembrechts, Florencia Yannelli and Marta Gaia Sperandii

Word cloud of the recurring topics coming out of our horizon scan for vegetation science. Along with “Vegetation”, terms like the “monitoring” of “change”, “dynamics” and “climate” pop out big, highlighting how vegetation science will increasingly have to move from what vegetation is and how it can be conserved to what vegetation can be and can become in a rapidly changing world.
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Range of variation in wetland vegetation on a subcontinental scale in Southern Africa

The post provided by Erwin Sieben

Sampling a wetland near Port St. Johns along the Eastern Cape coastline, South Africa (Photo credit: Erwin Sieben).

This Behind the paper post refers to the article Components of plant species diversity along environmental gradients at various spatial scales in wetland environments of southern Africa by Erwin Sieben et al.…

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