Journal
JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT
Volume 72, Issue 4, Pages 261-275Publisher
ACADEMIC PRESS LTD- ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2004.05.006
Keywords
agricultural practices; biodiversity; conservation management; constrained ordination; grassland ecosystems; grazing; mowing; shrub-clearing; niche amplitude; rare species
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The calcareous grasslands of the south-western French Alps have been poorly studied, although they provide suitable habitat for rare plant species and communities. The separate and combined effects on calcareous grassland communities of habitat conditions (lithology, soil moisture) and management regimes (grazing intensity, cutting regime) were studied using constrained ordination techniques (canonical correspondence analysis with variance partitioning). Among the explanatory variables considered, the most important factor determining floristic composition was lithology, which explained 11.9% of floristic variability, followed by grazing intensity (6.0%). Additive effects of management and lithology explained 23.9% of floristic variability. Species niche amplitude was measured by conditional variances of samples along main ordination axes, in order to define adequate conservation management for the rarest short-lived species with narrow niche breadth on both habitat and management gradients. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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