Wild boar (Sus scrofa) increases species diversity of semidry grassland: Field experiment with simulated soil disturbances

0504302 - BÚ 2020 RIV US eng J - Journal Article
Horčičková, E. - Brůna, Josef - Vojta, J.
Wild boar (Sus scrofa) increases species diversity of semidry grassland: Field experiment with simulated soil disturbances.
Ecology and Evolution. Roč. 9, č. 5 (2019), s. 2765-2774. ISSN 2045-7758. E-ISSN 2045-7758
Institutional support: RVO:67985939
Keywords : abandoned landscape * disturbance * semidry grassland
OECD category: Ecology
Impact factor: 2.392, year: 2019
Method of publishing: Open access

Based on repeated mapping of disturbances, we predict that if the disturbance regime we observed during the 5‐year period were maintained over the long term, it would yield a stable vegetation ratio consisting of 98.7% of the grassland undisturbed, 0.4% with fresh disturbance, and 0.9% in older successional stages. Vegetation composition in the artificially disturbed plots was continuously converging to that of undisturbed vegetation, but these disturbed plots still differed significantly in composition and had higher species number, even after eight years of succession. Our results thus show that wild boar disturbance regime in its native range increases heterogeneity and species diversity of semidry grassland vegetation.
Permanent Link: http://hdl.handle.net/11104/0295969