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Srdečne Vás pozývame na prvú prednášku Vedeckého kolokvia FPV UMB v akademickom roku 2025/2026

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PREDNÁŠAJÚCI
Santiago Soliveres Codina, University of Alicante, Spain

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NÁZOV PREDNÁŠKY
Drivers of grassland diversity, and their main mediating mechanisms, change with spatial scale in Carpathian grasslands

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KEDY A KDE?
08. september 2025 | 13:00 | miestnosť F257 (Katedra fyziky, 2. poschodie)

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ANOTÁCIA

The biodiversity of semi-natural grasslands is of great conservation interest. Yet, we still do not fully understand which are its most important drivers, or how they interplay at different spatial scales. For example, abiotic conditions, such as climate, often act as habitat filters reducing the pool of species able to colonize a given site. Simultaneously, however, harsh abiotic conditions can reduce competition between species, therefore increasing the number of species able to coexist at small spatial scales. Competition (or more generally plant-plant interactions), as well as grazing are major biotic interactions, but also can act as dispersal agents or habitat filters themselves. Last but not least, management, which is a major driver of the biodiversity of these grasslands, can have very different effects at landscape and local scales, depending on how intensively, but also how homogeneously, are these grasslands managed. To try to shed some light in this mess of potential (and conflicting) mechanisms operating at different spatial scales, we analysed the response of plant richness to landscape (heterogeneity, habitat size), management (mowing and grazing intensity, temporal stability, ploughing history), and environmental (soil, climate) drivers. We did so at 7 spatial scales in 228 sites across the Carpathians, and considering potential intermediate mechanisms (“filters” affecting the species pool, via competitive release, or the generation of new niches). Management, with plant composition being the most relevant intermediate mechanism, was the strongest driver of local plant diversity whereas climate was the main determinant of species pool. Deterministic processes operated at all scales but 1 cm2, where stochasticity played a much larger role. Our study may help linking biogeographical with communitylevel patterns, and quantifying key mechanisms driving the effects of anthropogenic and environmental changes on biodiversity. Together with these findings, I will briefly present some research on the importance of biotic interactions in other environments, as well as the consequences of biodiversity loss on the supply of ecosystem services.