Effect of the method of assessing and weighting abundance on the interpretation of the relationship between plant clonal traits and meadow management

0369685 - BÚ 2012 RIV CZ eng J - Journal Article
Klimešová, Jitka - Janeček, Štěpán - Horník, J. - Doležal, Jiří
Effect of the method of assessing and weighting abundance on the interpretation of the relationship between plant clonal traits and meadow management.
Preslia. Roč. 83, č. 3 (2011), 437-453. ISSN 0032-7786. E-ISSN 0032-7786
R&D Projects: GA ČR GA526/07/0808
Institutional research plan: CEZ:AV0Z60050516
Keywords : meadows * fertilization * abandonment
Subject RIV: EF - Botanics
Impact factor: 2.521, year: 2011

The role of clonal traits in a plant’s response to changes in management of semi-natural grasslands is poorly known and the few studies examining their importance have yielded contradictory results. For a better understanding of the role of plant functional traits in determining competitive ability and clonal growth in response to early changes in management, we mowed and applied fertilizer to 22 wet meadows in the Železné hory Mts, Czech Republic. We used two methods of assessing abundance (plant cover and species frequency) to determine whether changes in frequency induced by changes in management are better predicted by clonal traits while changes in cover are mainly determined by competitive traits such as plant height. The plant functional traits tested were generally found to be important soon after the changes in the management of the semi-natural grasslands occurred
Permanent Link: http://hdl.handle.net/11104/0203693