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Determinants of actual functional connectivity for calcareous grassland communities linked by rotational sheep grazing

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Abstract

In fragmented landscapes, plant species persistence depends on functional connectivity in terms of pollen flow to maintain genetic diversity within populations, and seed dispersal to re-colonize habitat patches following local extinction. Connectivity in plants is commonly modeled as a function of the physical distance between patches, without testing alternative dispersal vectors. In addition, pre- and post-dispersal processes such as seed production and establishment are likely to affect patch colonization rates. Here, we test alternative models of potential functional connectivity with different assumptions on source patch effects (patch area and species occupancy) and dispersal (relating to distance among patches, matrix composition, and sheep grazing routes) against empirical patch colonization rates at the community level (actual functional connectivity), accounting for post-dispersal effects in terms of structural elements providing regeneration niches for establishment. Our analyses are based on two surveys in 1989 and in 2009 of 48 habitat specialist plants in 62 previously abandoned calcareous grassland patches in the Southern Franconian Alb in Bavaria, Germany. The best connectivity model S i , as identified by multi-model inference, combined distance along sheep grazing routes including consistently and intermittently grazed patches with mean species occupancy in 1989 as a proxy for pre-dispersal effects. Community-level patch colonization rates depended to equal degrees on connectivity and post-dispersal process. Our study highlights that actual functional connectivity of calcareous grassland communities cannot be approximated by structural connectivity based on physical distance alone, and modeling of functional connectivity needs to consider pre- and post-dispersal processes.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC Discovery Grant; H. Wagner), the National Council on Science and Technology of Mexico (CONACYT; Y. Rico), the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD; Y. Rico), and the Government of Central Franconia (baseline survey). We thank Karlheinz Dadrich, Doris Baumgartner, Bernd Raab Stefanie Haacke, Jens Sachteleben, and the shepherds Erich Beil, Erich Neulinger, and Alfred Grimm for valuable information, Henry Lehnert for management data collection, Hawthorne Bayer for GIS support, Marie-Josee Fortin, and two anonymous reviewers for comments on earlier versions of the manuscript, and the Landscape Genetics Working Group supported by NCEAS, a Center funded by NSF (Grant #EF-0553768), the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the State of California.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto, 3359 Mississauga Road, Mississauga, ON, L5L, Canada

    Yessica Rico & Helene H. Wagner

  2. Department of Ecology and Ecosystem Management, LOEK, Technical University of Munich, Emil-Ramann-Str 6, 85350, Freising-Weihenstephan, Germany

    Hans Juergen Boehmer

  3. Interdisciplinary Latin America Center (ILZ), University of Bonn, Walter-Flex-Str. 3, 53113, Bonn, Germany

    Hans Juergen Boehmer

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  1. Yessica Rico
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  2. Hans Juergen Boehmer
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Correspondence to Yessica Rico.

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Rico, Y., Boehmer, H.J. & Wagner, H.H. Determinants of actual functional connectivity for calcareous grassland communities linked by rotational sheep grazing. Landscape Ecol 27, 199–209 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-011-9648-5

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