Change of Species and Habitat Diversity in the Pannonian Region of Eastern Lower Austria over 170 Years: Using Herbarium Records as a Witness - Natural Resources

NR > Vol.5 No.11, August 2014

Volume 5, Issue 11 (August 2014)

ISSN Print: 2158-706X ISSN Online: 2158-7086

Google-based Impact Factor: 0.89 Citations h5-index & Ranking

Change of Species and Habitat Diversity in the Pannonian Region of Eastern Lower Austria over 170 Years: Using Herbarium Records as a Witness ()

HTML

Download as PDF (Size: 3246KB) PP. 583-596

DOI: 10.4236/nr.2014.511051 3,182 Downloads 4,052 Views Citations

Author(s)

Alexandra Grass, Karin Tremetsberger, Reinhard Hössinger, Karl-Georg Bernhardt

Affiliation(s)

Institute for Transport Studies, Department of Landscape, Spatial and Infrastructure Sciences, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU), Vienna, Austria.
Institute of Botany, Department of Integrative Biology and Biodiversity Research, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU), Vienna, Austria.

ABSTRACT

By dint of historical herbarium specimens, we show how changes in species and habitat diversity can be reviewed and correlated with historical events. Our work is based on a digital database of specimens of the BOKU herbarium (WHB), which can be assigned to the Pannonian region of eastern Lower Austria. The complete dataset (n = 6655 specimens) was analyzed with the aid of statistical methods allowing computational elimination of collectors' effects (i.e. unbalanced collecting interests of collectors over time; multiple regression analysis, general linear model), from the first herbarium specimens (dating back to 1830) to the present. As a result, a significant decrease in the proportion of species of some habitats (above all water bodies and closely associated habitats, humid and wet meadows, fens and fen meadows, and nutrient poor grassland) was detected. For water-influenced habitats, this decrease correlates with the time of Danube regulation. Moreover, an increase in the proportion of species of ruderal sites was asserted during the observation period. The analysis procedure developed can be used for evaluation of major digitized herbaria in order to trace historical changes in species and habitat diversity.

KEYWORDS

Danube Regulation, Fens, Grassland, Herbarium Analysis, Water Bodies

Share and Cite:

Grass, A. , Tremetsberger, K. , Hössinger, R. and Bernhardt, K. (2014) Change of Species and Habitat Diversity in the Pannonian Region of Eastern Lower Austria over 170 Years: Using Herbarium Records as a Witness. Natural Resources, 5, 583-596. doi: 10.4236/nr.2014.511051.

Cited by

[1]	The Impact of Fine-Scale Present and Historical Land Cover on Plant Diversity in Central European National Parks with Heterogeneous Landscapes
	Land, 2022

[2]	Plantas vasculares de Macaronesia, excepto Canarias, en el Herbario TFC
	2020

[3]	Repositories for Taxonomic Data: Where We Are and What is Missing
	2020

[4]	Genetic variation in an ephemeral mudflat species: The role of the soil seed bank and dispersal in river and secondary anthropogenic habitats
	2020

[5]	Floristic change in New England and New York: regional patterns of plant species loss and decline
	2019

[6]	Species characteristics affect local extinctions
	2019

[7]	Widespread sampling biases in herbaria revealed from large‐scale digitization
	New Phytologist, 2018

[8]	Climate change, species loss, and spring phenology in and around Acadia National Park, Maine
	2017

[9]	Assessing the relevance of herbarium collections as tools for conservation biology.
	2017

[10]	Assessing the Relevance of Herbarium Collections as Tools for Conservation Biology
	The Botanical Review, 2017

[11]	Loss of plant species diversity in a rural German region–assessment on basis of a historical herbarium
	Tuexenia, 2016

[12]	Contrasting life history strategies in a phylogenetically diverse community of freshwater amphipods (Crustacea: Malacostraca)
	Zoology, 2015

[13]	High-performance digitization of natural history collections: Automated imaging lines for herbarium and insect specimens
	Taxon, 2014

[14]	Tree Species Composition in Tropical Forest Remnants of Highly Deforested Regions: The Case of the Huasteca Potosina Region, Mexico
	Natural Resources, 2014

[15]	High‐performance digitization of natural history collections: automated imaging lines for herbarium and insect specimens
	2014

	+1 323-425-8868
	customer@scirp.org
	+86 18163351462(WhatsApp)
	1655362766

	Paper Publishing WeChat

Journals Menu

Home

About SCIRP

Service

Policies