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Forest succession and population viability of grassland plants: long repayment of extinction debt in Primula veris

  • Population ecology – original research
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Abstract

Time lags in responses of organisms to deteriorating environmental conditions delay population declines and extinctions. We examined how local processes at the population level contribute to extinction debt, and how cycles of habitat deterioration and recovery may delay extinction. We carried out a demographic analysis of the fate of the grassland perennial Primula veris after the cessation of grassland management, where we used either a unidirectional succession model for forest habitat or a rotation model with a period of forest growth followed by a clear-cut and a new successional cycle. The simulations indicated that P. veris populations may have an extinction time of decades to centuries after a detrimental management change. A survey of the current incidence and abundance of P. veris in sites with different histories of afforestation confirmed the simulation results of low extinction rates. P. veris had reduced incidence and abundance only at sites with at least 100 years of forest cover. Time to extinction in simulations was dependent on the duration of the periods with favourable and unfavourable conditions after management cessation, and the population sizes and growth rates in these periods. Our results thus suggest that the ability of a species to survive is a complex function of disturbance regimes, rates of successional change, and the demographic response to environmental changes. Detailed demographic studies over entire successional cycles are therefore essential to identify the environmental conditions that enable long-term persistence and to design management for species experiencing extinction debts.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Malte Ehrlén and Juuso Lehtilä for their help in the fieldwork, and Rob Salguero-Gomez and an anonymous referee for comments on the manuscript. The Foundation of Baltic and East European Studies supported the study financially. M. B. G. was funded during the writing by a Spanish National Project (CGL2010-21642).

Author contribution statement

K. L., M. B. G., R. L., K. S. and J. E. planned and carried out the demographic studies. K. L., J. P. D. and J. E. designed the other field studies and the simulations, which K. L. carried out. K. L. had the main responsibility for manuscript writing; the other authors commented and made smaller contributions to the text.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Natural Sciences, Technology and Environmental Studies, Södertörn University, SE-14189, Huddinge, Sweden

    Kari Lehtilä

  2. Department of Biology and Max-Planck Odense Center of the Biodemography of Aging, University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, 5230, Odense M, Denmark

    Johan P. Dahlgren

  3. Instituto Pirenaico de Ecología (CSIC), Apdo. 13034, 50080, Saragossa, Spain

    Maria Begoña Garcia

  4. Department of Plant Sciences, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3RB, UK

    Roosa Leimu

  5. Finnish Environment Institute, FI-00251, Helsinki, Finland

    Kimmo Syrjänen

  6. Department of Ecology, Environment and Plant Sciences, Stockholm University, Lilla Frescati, SE-106 91, Stockholm, Sweden

    Johan Ehrlén

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  1. Kari Lehtilä
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  2. Johan P. Dahlgren
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  3. Maria Begoña Garcia
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  4. Roosa Leimu
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Correspondence to Kari Lehtilä.

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This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.

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The experiments comply with the current laws of Sweden and Finland in which the experiments were performed.

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Communicated by John Dwyer.

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Lehtilä, K., Dahlgren, J.P., Garcia, M.B. et al. Forest succession and population viability of grassland plants: long repayment of extinction debt in Primula veris . Oecologia 181, 125–135 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-016-3569-6

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