Steffen Boch

Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL | WSL · Biodiversity and Conservation Biology Research Unit

Questions Studies on bryophyte and lichen diversity patterns along elevational gradients are scarce, although this approach can serve as space‐for‐time substitution to predict diversity changes because of climate warming. Therefore, we investigated bryophytes and macrolichens in disturbed and undisturbed stands along an elevational gradient in the...

Die Wirkungskontrolle Biotopschutz Schweiz untersucht, ob Biotope von nationaler Bedeutung in ihrer Qualität erhalten bleiben. Trotz Schutzbemühungen verschlechterte sich jedoch der Zustand des artenreichen Grünlands in den vergangenen Jahren. Nutzungsaufgabe und zunehmende Verbuschung werden als Ursache vermutet. Besonders ausgeprägt ist dieser Tr...

Land-use intensification is a major threat to biodiversity in agricultural grasslands and fertilization is one of the main drivers. The effects of fertilization on biodiversity and plant functional composition (community-weighted mean traits and mean ecological indicator values) are well studied in lowland regions, but have received less attention...

Aims Resurveys of vegetation plots are prone to several errors that can result in misleading conclusions. Minimizing such errors and finding alternative approaches for analyzing resurvey data are therefore important. We focused on inter‐observer error and excluded other sources of variation. Our main questions were: How large is the inter‐observer...

Die Wirkungskontrolle Biotopschutz Schweiz zeigt – neben einer Reihe von positiven Entwicklungen –, dass sich der Zustand der Biotope von nationaler Bedeutung trotz gesetzlichem Schutz weiterhin verschlechtert. Dies verdeutlicht den grossen Handlungsbedarf für Renaturierungen und Pflegemassnahmen, damit der langfristige Erhalt von Arten und Lebensr...

Aim The enemy release hypothesis states that the invasion success of non‐native species is partly due to their escape from natural enemies, e.g., herbivores. Large‐scale studies of herbivory using multiple species across multiple sites are needed to test the generality of herbivory release in non‐native plants. Location Europe. Methods We carried...

The high plant diversity in alpine to subalpine grasslands is threatened by the abandonment of land use. In addition, changing environmental conditions might lead to vegetation shifts even when traditional land use is maintained, as observed in grasslands in Switzerland during the last decades. Maintaining and restoring the diversity of such grassl...

Europe’s semi-natural grasslands support notably high levels of temperate biodiversity across multiple taxonomic groups. However, these ecosystems face unique conservation challenges. Contemporary agricultural practices have replaced historical traditional low-intensity agriculture in many regions, resulting in a spectrum of management intensities...

Lichens are an important part of forest ecosystems, contributing to forest biodiversity, the formation of micro-niches and nutrient cycling. Assessing the diversity of lichenised fungi in complex ecosystems, such as forests, requires time and substantial skills in collecting and identifying lichens. The completeness of inventories thus largely depe...

As a result of human activities, a considerable part of European vascular plants and their populations are non-native. Since the publication of previous studies summarizing the composition and structure of European alien flora, our knowledge has increased, and new alien plant inventories and updates to existing ones have been published. The aim of...

While sampling the vegetation of the semi-natural grasslands with the EDGG standard methodology on the Swedish island of Gotland, the terricolous lichen species Cladonia homosekikaica Nuno from the C. pyxidata-chlorophaea complex was found in 2022. This is the first record of this species from Sweden. We provide here detailed information on its dif...

This Long Database Report describes the historical background and current contents of the Nordic-Baltic Grassland Vegetation Database (NBGVD) (GIVD-code EU-00-002). NBGVD is the EDGG-associated collaborative vegetation-plot database that collects vegetation-plot data of grasslands and other open habitats (except segetal and deep aquatic vegetation)...

Aims: Developing a hierarchical classification system for classes, orders and alliances of the diverse dry grasslands of the Central and Eastern Balkan Peninsula and translating this into an electronic expert system (ES) for the automatic assignment of plots. Location: Serbia, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Bulgaria and northern Greece. Methods: We extra...

Aims: We introduce ReSurveyEurope — a new data source of resurveyed vegetation plots in Europe, compiled by a collaborative network of vegetation scientists. We describe the scope of this initiative, provide an overview of currently available data, governance, data contribution rules, and accessibility. In addition, we outline further steps, includ...

The global biodiversity loss resulting from anthropogenic land-use activities is a pressing concern, requiring precise assessments of impacts at large spatial extents. Existing models primarily focus on quantifying impacts on species richness and abundance, often overlooking the ecological relevance of species traits and their contributions to ecos...

The high plant diversity in subalpine grasslands is threatened by the abandonment of land use, such as traditional haymaking. In addition, changing environmental conditions might lead to vegetation shifts even when traditional land use is maintained, as observed in mountain grasslands in Switzerland during the last decades. Maintaining and restorin...

Several regional initiatives and reporting efforts assess the state of forest biodiversity through broad-scale indicators based on data from national forest inventories. Although valuable, these indicators are essentially indirect and evaluate habitat quantity and quality rather than biodiversity per se. Therefore, their link to biodiversity may be...

Organismal functional strategies form a continuum from slow- to fast-growing organisms, in response to common drivers such as resource availability and disturbance. However, whether there is synchronisation of these strategies at the entire community level is unclear. Here, we combine trait data for >2800 above- and belowground taxa from 14 trophic...

Aims: The Raunkiaer's system classifies vascular plants into life forms based on the position of renewal buds during periods unfavourable for plant growth. Despite the importance of Raunkiaer's system for ecological research, a study exploring the diversity and distribution of life forms on a continental scale is missing. We aim to (i) map the dive...

Balázs Deák 52 | Guillaume Decocq 53 | Iwona Dembicz 54 | Jürgen Dengler 55,56 | Valter Di Cecco 57 | Jan Dick 58 | Martin Diekmann 59 | Hartmut Dierschke 60, † | Thomas Dirnböck 61 | Inken Doerfler 62 | Jiří Doležal 63,64 | Ute Döring 65 | Tomasz Durak 66 | Ciara Dwyer 67 | Rasmus Ejrnaes 68 | Inna Ermakova 69 | Brigitta Erschbamer 70 | Giuliano F...

Since 2019 the ‘Floristisch-soziologische Arbeitsgemeinschaft’ (FlorSoz) has annually nominated the ‘plant community of the year’, to draw attention to Germany’s endangered plant communities in need of protection. This campaign specifically aims at supporting the conservation of plant communities and their habitats as well as at promoting political...

L’échelle spatiale et le type de données considérées sont essentiels pour évaluer les tendances et les changements spatiaux de la biodiversité et pour identifier les processus sous-jacents. Les programmes nationaux de monitoring relèvent ce défi en considérant la biodiversité sur différents réseaux de mesure et/ou en confrontant différents indicate...

Die räumliche Skala und die Art der betrachteten Daten sind entscheidend, um räumliche Muster und Veränderungen der Biodiversität zu beurteilen und die zugrundeliegenden Prozesse zu identifizieren. Die nationalen Monitoringprogramme werden dieser Herausforderung gerecht, indem sie die Biodiversität auf unterschiedlichen Messnetzen betrachten und/od...

Land‐use intensification in grassland ecosystems (i.e. increased mowing frequency, intensified grazing) has a strong negative effect on biodiversity and ecosystem services. However, accurate information on grassland‐use intensity is difficult to acquire and restricted to the local or regional level. Recent studies have shown that mowing events can...

Across the tree of life, organismal functional strategies form a continuum from slow-to fast-growing organisms, in response to common drivers such as resource availability and disturbance. However, the synchronization of these strategies at the entire community level is untested. We combine trait data for >2800 above-and belowground taxa from 14 tr...

The European biodiversity and forest strategies rely on forest sustainable management (SFM) to conserve forest biodiversity. However, current sustainability assessments hardly account for direct biodiversity indicators. We focused on forest multi-taxon biodiversity to: i) gather and map the existing information; ii) identify knowledge and research...

Moore erbringen verschiedene Ökosystemdienstleistungen. Sie stehen jedoch unter Druck: Moore trocknen aus, typische Arten gehen verloren und Ökosystemleistungen können nicht mehr erbracht werden. Sollen Moore langfristig erhalten werden, braucht es Pflege- und Renaturierungsmassnahmen sowie die Wiederherstellung von vernetzten Feuchtlebensräumen.

Die 22. Auflage des in Botanikkreisen wohlbekannten Rothmalers – eines Standardwerks zur Pflanzenbestimmung – ist im Dezember 2021 erschienen. Der Rothmaler hat sich im Laufe der Jahrzehnte in Deutschland und auch über die deutschen Grenzen hinaus als Standard etabliert. Mancher Botaniker und manche Botanikerin mögen bereits eine weitreichende Samm...

Wiederholungen von Vegetationserhebungen sind wichtig, um zeitliche Veränderungen der biologischen Vielfalt und der Umweltbedingungen zu erfassen. Vegetationserhebungen sind jedoch anfällig für verschiedene Fehlerquellen. Diese gilt es zu minimieren und alternative Ansätze für die Analyse der Daten zu finden. Anhand eines Datensatzes von 224 doppel...

Key message Authors have analyzed the possible correlation between measurements/indicators of forest structure and species richness of many taxonomic or functional groups over three regions of Germany. Results show the potential to use structural attributes as a surrogate for species richness of most of the analyzed taxonomic and functional groups...

Increasing pressure on land resources necessitates landscape management strategies that simultaneously deliver multiple benefits to numerous stakeholder groups with competing interests. Accordingly, we developed an approach that combines ecological data on all types of ecosystem services with information describing the ecosystem service priorities...

The traditional grasslands that characterize the cultural landscapes of the Palaeartic mountain massifs represent biodiversity hotspots. Yet, they are currently threatened by the intensification of farming practices, notably excesses in fertilization and irrigation. We experimentally investigated the passive restoration of montane and subalpine hay...

Understanding whether land use intensification causes regime shifts is of key importance for management, particularly if these shifts are associated with thresholds separating different ecosystem states and with hysteretic dynamics. Here we use a unique, long-term grassland database to identify thresholds in the response of 16 ecosystem functions a...

The inneralpine dry valleys of the Swiss Alps are characterized by subcontinental climate, leading to many peculiarities in dry grassland species composition. Despite their well-known uniqueness, comprehensive studies on biodiversity patterns of the dry grasslands in these valleys were still missing. To close this gap, we sampled 161 10-m² vegetati...

En dehors de toute une série de développements positifs, le suivi des effets de la protection des biotopes en Suisse montre que l’état des biotopes d’importance nationale a continué de se dégrader malgré la protection légale. Cela démontre l’urgente nécessité de prendre des mesures de renaturation et d’entretien pour que la conservation à long term...

Die Familie der Weidengewächse (Salicaceae) umfasst 55 Gattungen mit insgesamt 1269 Arten. Die namensgebende Gattung der Familie, die Weiden (Gattung Salix), 477 laubwerfende Gehölzarten und rund 75 Arthybriden. Weiden kommen vor allem in den gemässigten und arktischen Zonen der nördlichen Hemisphäre vor, wenige Arten sind jedoch auch in den Subtro...

Understanding drivers and monitoring changes of biodiversity forms the basis for evidence-based management and policy recommendations that aim to reduce biodiversity loss and to ensure the delivery of ecosystem services on which we rely. Ecoacoustic monitoring can be applied across large spatial and temporal scales, offering the potential for less...

A typical degraded mountain bog in the Swiss Alps was restored by cessation of grazing and partial rewetting. We observed the development of the vegetation over 15 years, starting immediately after the grazing cessation (4 years before rewetting). Cessation of grazing stimulated the recolonisation of bare peat and the establishment of bryophytes. W...

Die Qualität der Schweizer Moore geht weiterhin zurück. Renaturierungen können jedoch negative Trends aufhalten und sogar umkehren. Über aktuelle Entwicklungen und wirksame Massnahmen tauschten sich 130 Fachleute aus Forschung und Praxis an einer Tagung an der Eidg. Forschungsanstalt WSL aus. La qualité des marais suisses continue de se dégrader m...

In 2022, the Eurasian Dry Grassland Group continues a long tradition of grassland-related publications and will organize the 17th Grassland Special Feature in Tuexenia (www.tuexenia.de). Tuexenia is a diamond open access, peer-reviewed journal publishing original articles, reviews, and reports. The well-cited annual EDGG Special Feature is open to...

Since the early 1990s, Switzerland designated about 7000 sites of national importance to protect precious habitats and their biodiversity. These legally protected sites include mires dry grasslands, flood plain habitats and amphibian breeding sites, and are a crucial element of the network of protected sites in Switzerland. In 2011, the program “Mo...

The Eurasian Dry Grassland Group (EDGG; http://www.edgg.org) is a network of re-searchers and conservationists interested in the biodiversity, ecology, conservation and resto-ration of Palaearctic natural and semi-natural grasslands (DENGLER et al. 2021). The main aims of the EDGG are to facilitate research and scientific discussions on any aspect...

Hemiparasitic plants can reduce interspecific competition by parasitizing competitive species or by reducing the density of dominant plants. However, effects of hemiparasites have been suggested to be density dependent and to follow an optimum curve, with the highest diversity values occurring at intermediate hemiparasite densities. As a proof of p...

Schall et al. (2020) assessed how a combination of different forest management systems in managed forest landscapes dominated by European beech may affect the biodiversity (alpha, beta and gamma) of 14 taxonomic groups. Current forest policy and nature conservation often demand for combining uneven‐aged managed and unmanaged, set‐aside for nature c...

Aims Understanding fine-grain diversity patterns across large spatial extents is fundamental for macroecological research and biodiversity conservation. Using the GrassPlot database, we provide benchmarks of fine-grain richness values of Palaearctic open habitats for vascular plants, bryophytes, lichens and complete vegetation (i.e., the sum of the...

Experiments showed that biodiversity increases grassland productivity and nutrient exploitation, potentially reducing fertiliser needs. Enhancing biodiversity could improve P-use efficiency of grasslands, which is beneficial given that rock-derived P fertilisers are expected to become scarce in the future. Here, we show in a biodiversity experiment...

Aim The number of naturalized (i.e. established) alien species has increased rapidly over recent centuries. Given the differences in environmental tolerances among species, little is known about what factors determine the extent to which the observed size of the naturalized range of a species and hence the extent to which the observed richness of n...

Land-use intensification is a major driver of biodiversity loss. However, understanding how different components of land use drive biodiversity loss requires the investigation of multiple trophic levels across spatial scales. Using data from 150 agricultural grasslands in central Europe, we assess the influence of multiple components of local-and l...

Questions: Which environmental factors influence fine-grain beta diversity of vegetation and do they vary among taxonomic groups? Location: Palaearctic biogeographic realm. Methods: We extracted 4,654 nested-plot series with at least four different grain sizes between 0.0001 m² and 1,024 m² from the GrassPlot database, covering a wide range of di...

Significance Invasive alien species pose major threats to biodiversity and ecosystems. However, identifying drivers of invasion success has been challenging, in part because species can achieve invasiveness in different ways, each corresponding to different aspects of demographics and distribution. Employing a multidimensional perspective of invasi...

Die Intensivierung der Landnutzung bedroht die Biodiversität unserer Grasländer und dies nicht nur im Tiefland, sondern auch in Bergregionen. Ein Versuch in Bergwiesen im Kanton Wallis zeigte bereits nach 5 Jahren, dass besonders die Düngung negative Auswirkungen auf die Pflanzenvielfalt hat und die Artenzusammensetzung verändert. Die Studie deckte...

Aims Biodiversity is traditionally studied mostly at the species level, but biogeographical and macroecological studies at higher taxonomic levels can provide valuable insights into the evolutionary processes at large spatial scales. Our aim was to assess the representation of vascular plant families within different vegetation formations across Eu...