Ecological Analysis of Large Floristic and Plant-Sociological Datasets – Opportunities and Limitations
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Ecological analysis of large floristic and plant-sociological datasets – opportunities and limitations Dissertation for the award of the degree "Doctor rerum naturalium" (Dr.rer.nat.) of the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen within the doctoral program Biology of the Georg-August University School of Science (GAUSS) submitted by Florian Goedecke from Wernigerode Göttingen, 2018 Thesis Committee Prof. Dr. Erwin Bergmeier, Department Vegetation und Phytodiversity Analyses, Albrecht von Haller Institute of Plant Sciences University of Goettingen Prof. Dr. Holger Kreft, Department Biodiversity, Macroecology & Biogeography, University of Goettingen Members of the Examination Board Reviewer: Prof. Dr. Erwin Bergmeier, Department Vegetation und Phytodiversity Analyses, Albrecht von Haller Institute of Plant Sciences University of Goettingen Second Reviewer: Prof. Dr. Holger Kreft, Department Biodiversity, Macroecology & Biogeography, University of Goettingen Further members of the Examination Board Prof. Dr. Markus Hauck, Department of Plant Ecology and Ecosystems Research, Albrecht von Haller Institute of Plant Sciences University of Goettingen PD. Dr. Ina Meyer, Department of Plant Ecology and Ecosystems Research, Albrecht von Haller Institute of Plant Sciences University of Goettingen Prof. Dr. Hermann Behling, Department of Palynology and Climate Dynamics, Albrecht von Haller Institute of Plant Sciences University of Goettingen PD. Dr. Matthias Waltert, Workgroup Endangered Species Conservation, Johann Friedrich Blumenbach Institute of Zoology and Anthropology University of Goettingen Date of the oral examination: 4th May 2018 Ecological niches of species are not simple and some niches are simply not predictable. Contents List of tables ............................................................................................................................................ 2 List of figures ........................................................................................................................................... 3 Abbreviations .......................................................................................................................................... 4 Summary ................................................................................................................................................. 5 Zusammenfassung ................................................................................................................................... 7 Chapter 1: General Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 9 The Framework .................................................................................................................................. 10 Mediterranean islands as study region ............................................................................................. 13 Analysed datasets.............................................................................................................................. 19 Chapter overview and problems addressed ...................................................................................... 20 Chapter 2: Quantified ecology and co-occurrence of Mediterranean woody species in a landscape context ...... 23 Chapter 3: Platanus orientalis woodlands of Crete – diversity, distribution and conservation status .................. 41 Chapter 4: Ecology and potential distribution of the Cretan endemic tree species Zelkova abelicea ................... 57 Chapter 5: Geological data significantly reduce the model performance of species distribution models on broad spatial scales. A GIS – based approach from two Mediterranean Islands ............................................ 71 Chapter 6: Synthesis ....................................................................................................................................... 91 Analyses opportunities addressed ..................................................................................................... 92 Limitations ......................................................................................................................................... 99 Further perspectives ........................................................................................................................ 103 Concluding remarks ......................................................................................................................... 107 References ........................................................................................................................................... 108 Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................................. 140 Academic CV ........................................................................................................................................ 141 Scientific contributions ........................................................................................................................ 143 Appendix .............................................................................................................................................. 145 1 List of tables Table 2.1 Databases contributing to the study……………………………………………………………………………. 27 Table 2.2 Mediterranean woody species sampled on Crete……………………………………………………….. 28 Table 2.3 Abiotic site parameters and raster data used in this study………………………………………….. 29 Table 2.4 Geological units in Crete and percentages of total island surface ………………………………. 30 Table 3.1 Synoptic table for three associations of Cretan Platanus orientalis woods in Crete…… 50 Table 4.1 Data collection for Zelkova abelicea populations of Crete……………………………………………. 63 Table 4.2 Populations of Z. abelicea in the Cretan mountain ranges………………….……………………….. 64 Table 4.3 Environmental factors used to predict species distribution of Z. abelicea……….………… 64 Table 4.4 Sample predictions with tested populations for a species distribution…………………………. 67 Table 4.5 Sample prediction values for combinations of populations.…………………………………………. 67 Table 5.1 Taxa used in this study and their records for each island……………………………………………… 77 Table 5.2 Woody species on Crete and Sicily with their affinity to bedrock types (% of records)…. 81 Table 5.3 Jacknife testing for single variables for Crete and Sicily percentages………………………….. 82 2 List of figures Figure 1.1 Regional topography and location of the studied islands Sicily and Crete.……….……………13 Figure 1.2 Climate diagrams for three weather stations within the study area ………………………........14 Figure 1.3 Geological maps for Sicily and Crete..…………………………………………….………………………….....16 Figure 2.1 Map of the island of Crete with density of woody species records……………………..……….. 29 Figure 2.2 Ecological heatmap for Mediterranean woody species on Crete. ………………………………… 32 Figure 2.3 Plotted results of multivariate analysis (PCA). …………………………………………………………….. 33 Figure 2.4 Relative frequencies of 37 woody species within habitats from Crete…………………….…… 34 Figure 3.1 Platanus orientalis woodlands in Crete (pictures)……………………………………………………….. 44 Figure 3.2 Distribution of vegetation records of Platanion orientalis in Crete……………………........... 47 Figure 3.3 Natura 2000 habitat quality assessment of Crete for Platanion orientalis…………………… 53 Figure 3.4 Platanus orientalis woodlands in Crete with observed pressures and threats…………..... 54 Figure 4.1 Map of distribution and altitudinal patterns for the Zelkova abelicea in Crete………..….. 61 Figure 4.2 Site conditions for six populations of Z. abelicea ………………………………………………………… 64 Figure 5.1 Differences of environmental factors for the two study regions……………..……………………77 Figure 5.2 Boxplots displaying variation in test AUC-values for woody species in Crete and Sicily..81 Figure 5.3 Modeled species distribution trained for Crete and Sicily for two species…………………… 81 3 Abbreviations a.s.l. above sea level AUC Area under the Curve of ROC EEA European Environmental Agency CBD international Convention on Biological Diversity DCA Detrended Correspondence Analysis DEM Digital Elevation Model ENM Environmental Niche Model GIS Geographical Information System LUCAS Land Use and Cover Area frame Statistical survey PCA Principal Component Analysis ROC Receiver Operating Characteristic SDM Species Distribution Model SD Standard Deviation spp. (multiple) species subsp. subspecies syn. synonym 4 Summary This thesis comprises opportunities and limitations for the analysis of floristic and plant-sociological datasets and presents four related exemplary case studies. Woody plant species, their isolated (meta)populations and vegetation units are considered as study objects in a Mediterranean island context. Studies address the islands of Crete and Sicily. The first chapter introduces to general methodologies and positions the conducted studies within this frame. The second chapter addresses the ecology and co-occurrence of woody species in Cretan landscape context. For precise coordinates of almost 9700 records of 37 species site-information on geology, geomorphology and climate were compiled. The resulting ecological spectra for each species were clustered by similarity, which revealed ecological species groups. These groups reflect distinct ecological units in the Cretan landscape and match partly with published vegetation and habitat schemes (EUNIS, Natura 2000, European vegetation classification).