Benchmarking plant diversity of Palaearctic grasslands and other open habitats

Biurrun, I. and Pielech, R. and Dembicz, I. and Gillet, F. and Kozub, Ł. and Marcenò, C. and Reitalu, T. and Van Meerbeek, K. and Guarino, R. and Chytrý, M. and Pakeman, R.J. and Preislerová, Z. and Axmanová, I. and Burrascano, S. and Bartha, S. and Boch, S. and Bruun, H.H. and Conradi, T. and De Frenne, P. and Essl, F. and Filibeck, G. and Hájek, M. and Jiménez-Alfaro, B. and Kuzemko, A. and Molnár, Z. and Pärtel, M. and Pätsch, R. and Prentice, H.C. and Roleček, J. and Sutcliffe, L.M.E. and Terzi, M. and Winkler, M. and Wu, J. and Aćić, S. and Acosta, A.T.R. and Afif, E. and Akasaka, M. and Alatalo, J.M. and Aleffi, M. and Aleksanyan, A. and Ali, A. and Apostolova, I. and Ashouri, P. and Bátori, Z. and Baumann, E. and Becker, T. and Belonovskaya, E. and Benito Alonso, J.L. and Berastegi, A. and Bergamini, A. and Bhatta, K.P. and Bonini, I. and Büchler, M.-O. and Budzhak, V. and Bueno, Á. and Buldrini, F. and Campos, J.A. and Cancellieri, L. and Carboni, M. and Ceulemans, T. and Chiarucci, A. and Chocarro, C. and Conti, L. and Csergő, A.M. and Cykowska-Marzencka, B. and Czarniecka-Wiera, M. and Czarnocka-Cieciura, M. and Czortek, P. and Danihelka, J. and de Bello, F. and Deák, B. and Demeter, L. and Deng, L. and Diekmann, M. and Dolezal, J. and Dolnik, C. and Dřevojan, P. and Dupré, C. and Ecker, K. and Ejtehadi, H. and Erschbamer, B. and Etayo, J. and Etzold, J. and Farkas, T. and Farzam, M. and Fayvush, G. and Fernández Calzado, M.R. and Finckh, M. and Fjellstad, W. and Fotiadis, G. and García-Magro, D. and García-Mijangos, I. and Gavilán, R.G. and Germany, M. and Ghafari, S. and Giusso del Galdo, G.P. and Grytnes, J.-A. and Güler, B. and Gutiérrez-Girón, A. and Helm, A. and Herrera, M. and Hüllbusch, E.M. and Ingerpuu, N. and Jägerbrand, A.K. and Jandt, U. and Janišová, M. and Jeanneret, P. and Jeltsch, F. and Jensen, K. and Jentsch, A. and Kącki, Z. and Kakinuma, K. and Kapfer, J. and Kargar, M. and Kelemen, A. and Kiehl, K. and Kirschner, P. and Koyama, A. and Langer, N. and Lazzaro, L. and Lepš, J. and Li, C.-F. and Li, F.Y. and Liendo, D. and Lindborg, R. and Löbel, S. and Lomba, A. and Lososová, Z. and Lustyk, P. and Luzuriaga, A.L. and Ma, W. and Maccherini, S. and Magnes, M. and Malicki, M. and Manthey, M. and Mardari, C. and May, F. and Mayrhofer, H. and Meier, E.S. and Memariani, F. and Merunková, K. and Michelsen, O. and Molero Mesa, J. and Moradi, H. and Moysiyenko, I. and Mugnai, M. and Naqinezhad, A. and Natcheva, R. and Ninot, J.M. and Nobis, M. and Noroozi, J. and Nowak, A. and Onipchenko, V. and Palpurina, S. and Pauli, H. and Pedashenko, H. and Pedersen, C. and Peet, R.K. and Pérez-Haase, A. and Peters, J. and Pipenbaher, N. and Pirini, C. and Pladevall-Izard, E. and Plesková, Z. and Potenza, G. and Rahmanian, S. and Rodríguez-Rojo, M.P. and Ronkin, V. and Rosati, L. and Ruprecht, E. and Rusina, S. and Sabovljević, M. and Sanaei, A. and Sánchez, A.M. and Santi, F. and Savchenko, G. and Sebastià, M.T. and Shyriaieva, D. and Silva, V. and Škornik, S. and Šmerdová, E. and Sonkoly, J. and Sperandii, M.G. and Staniaszek-Kik, M. and Stevens, C. and Stifter, S. and Suchrow, S. and Swacha, G. and Świerszcz, S. and Talebi, A. and Teleki, B. and Tichý, L. and Tölgyesi, C. and Torca, M. and Török, P. and Tsarevskaya, N. and Tsiripidis, I. and Turisová, I. and Ushimaru, A. and Valkó, O. and Van Mechelen, C. and Vanneste, T. and Vasheniak, I. and Vassilev, K. and Viciani, D. and Villar, L. and Virtanen, R. and Vitasović-Kosić, I. and Vojtkó, A. and Vynokurov, D. and Waldén, E. and Wang, Y. and Weiser, F. and Wen, L. and Wesche, K. and White, H. and Widmer, S. and Wolfrum, S. and Wróbel, A. and Yuan, Z. and Zelený, D. and Zhao, L. and Dengler, J. (2021) Benchmarking plant diversity of Palaearctic grasslands and other open habitats. Journal of Vegetation Science, 32 (4): e13050. ISSN 1100-9233

Abstract

Aims: Understanding fine-grain diversity patterns across large spatial extents is fundamental for macroecological research and biodiversity conservation. Using the GrassPlot database, we provide benchmarks of fine-grain richness values of Palaearctic open habitats for vascular plants, bryophytes, lichens and complete vegetation (i.e., the sum of the former three groups). Location: Palaearctic biogeographic realm. Methods: We used 126,524 plots of eight standard grain sizes from the GrassPlot database: 0.0001, 0.001, 0.01, 0.1, 1, 10, 100 and 1,000 m2 and calculated the mean richness and standard deviations, as well as maximum, minimum, median, and first and third quartiles for each combination of grain size, taxonomic group, biome, region, vegetation type and phytosociological class. Results: Patterns of plant diversity in vegetation types and biomes differ across grain sizes and taxonomic groups. Overall, secondary (mostly semi-natural) grasslands and natural grasslands are the richest vegetation type. The open-access file ”GrassPlot Diversity Benchmarks” and the web tool “GrassPlot Diversity Explorer” are now available online (https://edgg.org/databases/GrasslandDiversityExplorer) and provide more insights into species richness patterns in the Palaearctic open habitats. Conclusions: The GrassPlot Diversity Benchmarks provide high-quality data on species richness in open habitat types across the Palaearctic. These benchmark data can be used in vegetation ecology, macroecology, biodiversity conservation and data quality checking. While the amount of data in the underlying GrassPlot database and their spatial coverage are smaller than in other extensive vegetation-plot databases, species recordings in GrassPlot are on average more complete, making it a valuable complementary data source in macroecology.