The study examined biodiversity across many regions of Europe. In this picture, researchers are conducting research in the Bjelasica Mountains in Montenegro.
Photo Credit: Milan Chytrý
Scientific Frontline: Extended "At a Glance" Summary: European Plant Biodiversity Dynamics
The Core Concept: Although the total number of plant species in many European ecosystems has increased locally over the past century, this localized growth is primarily driven by adaptable generalists and non-native species rather than a thriving native ecosystem.
Key Distinction/Mechanism: While a localized increase in species count might traditionally indicate habitat health, this phenomenon masks a continent-wide stagnation, demonstrating a slow, long-term displacement of rare, native specialist plants by highly adaptable generalist species.
Major Frameworks/Components:
- Vegetation-Plot Time Series: Systematic, longitudinal surveys of plant communities conducted repeatedly at identical geographic locations to track ecological shifts over extended periods.
- Habitat Stratification: The categorization of ecosystems based on environmental stability, tracking whether specific areas have remained stable, altered naturally, or suffered anthropogenic disruption.
- Habitat-Specific Variance: The observation that ecosystems react differently to these pressures, with wetlands and marshlands experiencing the most drastic ecological disruptions, whereas established grasslands exhibit far greater stability.
Branch of Science: Ecology, Botany, Environmental Science, and Conservation Biology.
Future Application: Leveraging the extensive dataset from the Europe-wide "MOTIVATE" project will allow researchers to predict long-term ecological degradation across specific habitats, enabling conservationists to design targeted interventions before localized displacement becomes widespread extinction.
Why It Matters: The findings establish that a localized increase in plant species is an unreliable metric for ecological health, requiring conservation strategies to prioritize native species composition over raw species counts.
The number of plant species in many ecosystems across Europe has grown, rather than shrunk, over the past 100 years. However, this is not necessarily a cause for celebration, as this local increase is primarily due to generalists and non-native species, which compete with native species. Moreover, the overall number of species has not increased across Europe. These were the findings of an international research team led by Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU). In its latest study, published in the scientific journal Nature Communications, the team analyzed more than 57,000 time series of plant biodiversity across various habitats in Europe.
The new study’s starting point was a typical, seemingly contradictory observation in biodiversity research: “It is well known that biodiversity is changing at the global level, with species being displaced or going extinct. However, these changes are not always so readily apparent at the local level, where the number of species may even increase initially,” explains Dr. Stephan Kambach, an ecologist at MLU, who led the study along with Dr. Ute Jandt and Professor Helge Bruelheide.
Working with researchers from twenty-one countries, the three scientists produced the first detailed, Europe-wide analysis of how local plant biodiversity has changed over the past 100 years. To do this, the team used more than 57,000 vegetation-plot time series—systematic surveys of plant communities carried out repeatedly over a long period at the same location. The data were also categorized according to habitat and how they have changed over time; specifically, whether a habitat has remained stable, has changed naturally, or has been disrupted by human activity. “Our analysis is the largest study to date on the changes to Europe’s local plant communities. In addition to identifying general trends in various aspects of plant biodiversity, we have been able, for the first time, to provide detailed information about most European habitat types,” explains Helge Bruelheide.
Over the past century, the number of species has risen by an average of 0.2 percent per year in Europe. However, there were significant variations depending on the habitat. The biggest changes were observed in wetlands and marshlands, particularly where these habitats had been disturbed or overgrown by trees and shrubs. In contrast, the changes were much less pronounced in grasslands. “We saw that, on the local scale, there are actually more plant species than there used to be. But on closer inspection, these were mainly generalists and non-native species. This increase is therefore not a sign of an intact habitat but often an indication of precisely the opposite,” says Kambach. Adaptable generalists have the ability to displace native specialists and rare plants over the long term. This is supported by another finding: the total number of species found across all areas of a given habitat type in Europe has not increased, despite the arrival of new species. “Species displacement and extinction are slow processes that can only be observed and documented over long periods,” adds Kambach. If the trends observed by the researchers continue, species numbers could decline even in areas where populations are currently stable.
“Our study would not have been possible without the decades of data collected by botanists from across Europe. It also highlights how important the continuous, Europe-wide monitoring of local plant communities is,” says Ute Jandt. She coordinates the Europe-wide project MOTIVATE at MLU. The project is funded by the European Commission and various national research funding bodies as part of the Biodiversa+ partnership. Project partners are based in Rostock (Germany), Oulu (Finland), Brno (the Czech Republic), Vienna (Austria), Oviedo (Spain), and Bologna and Rome (Italy).
Published in journal: Nature Communications
Authors: Stephan Kambach, Ute Jandt, Alicia Teresa Rosario Acosta, Jose Manuel Álvarez-Martínez, Irena Axmanová, Manuele Bazzichetto, Erwin Bergmeier, Markus Bernhardt-Römermann, Idoia Biurrun, Gianmaria Bonari, Marta Carboni, Marcos Bergmann Carlucci, Maria Laura Carranza, Bruno Enrico Leone Cerabolini, Alessandro Chiarucci, Milan Chytrý, Gabriella Damasceno, Jürgen Dengler, Michele De Sanctis, Jan Divíšek, Jiří Dolezal, Stefan Dullinger, Franz Essl, Klára Friesová, Veronika Fontana, Emmanuel Garbolino, Michael Glaser, Ana González-Robles, Behlül Güler, Georg J. A. Hähn, Michal Hájek, Tracy Hruska, Estela Illa, Florian Jansen, Steven Jansen, Anke Jentsch, Borja Jiménez-Alfaro, W. Daniel Kissling, Ilona Knollová, Gianalberto Losapio, Udayangani Liu, Jonathan Lenoir, Frederic Lens, Bernd Lenzner, Antonio J. Perea, Laura Méndez, Julie Messier, Akira S. Mori, Francesca Napoleone, Roger Norum, Alexander Novakovskiy, Renske Onstein, Robin J. Pakeman, Josep Peñuelas, Petr Petřík, Remigiusz Pielech, Bruno X. Pinho, Peter Poschlod, Valerijus Rašomavičius, Christiane Roscher, Christian Rossi, Francesco Maria Sabatini, Brody Sandel, David Schellenberger Costa, Wolfgang Schmidt, Serge Sheremetiev, Tanvir Ahmed Shovon, Marko J. Spasojevic, Nathan G. Swenson, Grzegorz Swacha, Rubén Tarifa, Lubomír Tichý, Marcello Tomaselli, Alicia Valdés, Koenraad Van Meerbeek, Vigdis Vandvik, Kiril Vassilev, Martin Večeřa, Evan Weiher, Thomas Wohlgemuth, and Helge Bruelheide
Source/Credit: Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg | Zum Seitenanfang
Edited by: Scientific Frontline
Reference Number: eco062626_01
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