| title: | Soil heterogeneity and species diversity in grassland and forest floor plant communities |
|---|---|
| reg no: | ETF5503 |
| project type: | Estonian Science Foundation research grant |
| subject: |
1.10-1.16. Bio-Geo Sciences |
| status: | completed |
| institution: | TU Faculty of Biology and Geography |
| head of project: | Meelis Pärtel |
| duration: | 01.01.2003 - 31.12.2005 |
| description: | Soil small-scale heterogeneity has been positively connected to high plant diversity. Opposite examples, however, are available. We used a theoretical model to connect small-scale soil heterogeneity, plant diversity and dominant community type (grassland or forest). Trees and shrubs are found to be associated with higher soil heterogeneity than herbaceous plants. They have benefits in heterogeneous soils compared to herbaceous plants, but they also can create soil heterogeneity. We shall test how wide-spread this observation is by performing a global meta-study across latitudes and biogeographical regions. Locally we test our model within semi-natural grasslands in Estonia using field data and experiments. We test the following hypotheses: (1) more diverse grasslands are generally older and probably less prone for overgrowing by woody species, thus they should be more homogeneous than less diverse grasslands; (2) overgrown grasslands have heterogeneous soils, compared to intact grasslands; (3) soil heterogeneity is positively related to shrub cover. Further we hypothesize that soil heterogeneity is largely created by vegetation; (4) high soil resource heterogeneity is related to high root length heterogeneity; and (5) sods, transplanted from grassland to woodland show high heterogeneity, and sods transplanted from woodland to grassland show low heterogeneity. |
| project group | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| no | name | institution | position | |
| 1. | Rein Kalamees | Univ. of Tartu | researcher | |
| 2. | Meelis Pärtel | TU Faculty of Biology and Geography | professor | |