Thorsten Englisch

V-P-N Büro für Vegetationsmonitoring, Populationsökologie und Naturschutzforschung

Ecological indicator values for Austrian vascular plants. Ecological indicator values of plants serve as indirect indicators for the status of ecological parameters in absence of physico-chemical measurements at place. Ellenberg introduced seven parameters which are namely light (L), temperature (T), continentality (K), moisture (F), reaction (R),...

Aims: To develop a consistent ecological indicator value system for Europe for five of the main plant niche dimensions: soil moisture (M), soil nitrogen (N), soil reaction (R), light (L) and temperature (T). Study area: Europe (and closely adjacent regions). Methods: We identified 31 indicator value systems for vascular plants in Europe that contai...

Background: Ecological indicator values (EIVs) have a long tradition in vegetation ecological research in Europe. EIVs characterise the ecological optimum of species along major environmental gradients using ordinal scales. Calculating mean indicator values per plot is an effective way of bioindication. Following first systems in Russia and Central...

Aims: Austrian Dragonhead (Dracocephalum austriacum) is a critically endangered species with highly disjunctive distribution and only rare occurrences in Austria, which is listed as priority species of the Habitats Directive, Annex II. We wanted to address whether D. austriacum is randomly distributed within its habitats or occupies a certain ecolo...

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) aims at the conservation of all three levels of biodiversity, that is, ecosystems, species and genes. Genetic diversity represents evolutionary potential and is important for ecosystem functioning. Unfortunately, genetic diversity in natural populations is hardly considered in conservation strategies bec...

Aim To evaluate the effect of post-glacial migration lags on the current distribution of Alpine plants and the factors responsible for possible range-filling differences among species. Location Austrian Alps. Methods We used species distribution models to predict environmentally suitable sites for 183 Alpine plants at a fine spatial resolution (100...

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) aims at the conservation of all three levels of biodiversity, that is, ecosystems, species and genes. Genetic diversity represents evolutionary potential and is important for ecosystem functioning. Unfortunately, genetic diversity in natural populations is hardly considered in conservation strategies bec...

Floristic records of 320 interesting vascular plants are reported for Austria including the following taxa as new for the stated Austrian provinces (* new for Austria): Vienna: Allium christophii, Cynoglossum hungaricum; Lower Austria: Broussonetia papyrifera, Rhodotypos scandens*, Taraxacum panalpinum; Upper Austria: Bolboschoenus yagara, Epipacti...

Aim We test for the congruence between allele-based range boundaries (break zones) in silicicolous alpine plants and species-based break zones in the silicicolous flora of the European Alps. We also ask whether such break zones coincide with areas of large elevational variation. Location The European Alps. Methods On a regular grid laid across th...

Translated title: The Ground beetle fauna (Carabidae) of the Symposion Lindabrunn (Lower Austria). The area of the "Symposion Lindabrunn", situated at the former municipel pasture, was continuously grazed until the 1960s. Subsequent scrub encroachment and reforestration icreasingly threatened the species composition of the semi-dry grasslands. Than...

Impact of glacial history on the phylogeography of silicate-dwelling plants of the European Alps has been particularly well studied, whereas virtually no data are available for species growing on different bedrock types, as for Hornungia alpina. Bayesian clustering of AFLP data only partly support the distinction of three subspecies as morphologica...

Aim To test the influence of various species traits, elevation and phylogeographical history on the genetic diversity of high-mountain plants in the Alps and Carpathians. Location The regular sampling grid comprised the whole range of the European Alps and the Carpathians. Methods Twenty-two high-mountain plant species were exhaustively sampled and...

Biodiversity has three components – genetic, species, and ecosystem diversity - and there are complex ecological and historical factors shaping biodiversity patterns. Disentangling these factors is important for our understanding of biodiversity. Moreover, it is important to understand the relationships among the biodiversity levels. The goal of th...

The importance of the conservation of all three fundamental levels of biodiversity (ecosystems, species and genes) has been widely acknowledged, but only in recent years it has become technically feasible to consider intraspecific diversity, i.e. the genetic component to biodiversity. In order to facilitate the assessment of biodiversity, considera...

Abstract. New floristic records from the eastern Karavanke/Karawanken and Kamniške Alpe/Steiner Alpen (Slovenia and Austria) are reported. Allium kermesinum is new for Austria; Arabis soyeri subsp. subcoriacea, Carex rupestris and Draba dubia are new for the Kamniške Alpe/Steiner Alpen; for Androsace hausmannii, Arabisstellulata, Carex ornithopodoi...

Plant–plant interactions are increasingly considered as complex phenomena involving both negative and positive components. Within a community, the relative importance of these components is probably species‐specific and may also vary among life‐history stages and along environmental gradients. We used the tree line of the north‐eastern Calcareous A...

Aim To test predictions of different large‐scale biodiversity hypotheses by analysing species richness patterns of vascular plants in the Austrian Alps. Location The Austrian part of the Alps ( c. 53,500 km ² ). Methods Within the floristic inventory of Central Europe the Austrian part of the Alps were systematically mapped for vascular plants. Dat...

We address whether vascular plants can serve as a surrogate for ants in fine-scale assemblage studies by investigating assemblages of four plots of a dry steppe habitat in eastern Austria. We found that ants drew another picture than plants with respect to evenness, assemblage similarity, meta-similarity between single assemblage similarity matrice...

Ecological indicator values according to ELLENBERG are based on the ecological preferences of plants and are realized as subjective, ordinal scaled systems to categorize species response to climatic (light, temperature, continentality) and edaphic (moisture, reaction, nitrogen, salt) habitat parameters. The application of indicator values in quanti...

We present the outline of a study on flora and vegetation of dry steppe habitats in the Hainburger Berge (Lower Austria) based on vegetation samples using the Braun-Blanquet approach. All grassland communities are classified within the Festuco-Brometea. The vegetation units and their species composition indicate the exceptional position of the Hain...

A new endemic plant community from the Thlaspietea rotundifolii from the eastern Central Alps (Austria), characterized by Saxifraga blepharophylla, is described: Saxifragetum blepharophyllae Schönswetter, Schneeweiß & Englisch ass. nov. Its ecological characteristics are presented and two sub-associations are defined: subass. doronicetosum glaciali...

Im Mittelpunkt der vorliegenden Arbeit stehen die Vegetationseinheiten der Kalkschneeböden im Gebiet der Nördlichen Kalkalpen und ihre Analyse mit multivariaten Verfahren. Während die Silikatschneetälchen vergleichsweise gut untersucht sind, ist die Kenntnis der entsprechenden Standorte über Kalksubstraten bislang mangelhaft. Auf der Suche nach „Sc...

Within the vegetation data of snow bed and limestone scree communities of the Eastern Alps, nine different moss-dominated communities on calcareous subtrates can be distinguished. Floristical and structural importance of the moss species and syntaxonomical relationships are discussed. One moss-community is described as a new association according t...