Ute Jandt

Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg | MLU

Plant communities are composed of species that differ both in functional traits and evolutionary histories. As species’ functional traits partly result from their individual evolutionary history, we expect the functional diversity of communities to increase with increasing phylogenetic diversity. This expectation has only been tested at local scale...

To address the biodiversity crisis, global and regional policy frameworks like the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and the European Green Deal demand to monitor biodiversity. Despite these efforts, existing approaches for monitoring biodiversity remain fragmented and lack data integration. Here, we review and synthesize crucial infor...

Climate change is commonly assumed to induce species’ range shifts toward the poles. Yet, other environmental changes may affect the geographical distribution of species in unexpected ways. Here, we quantify multidecadal shifts in the distribution of European forest plants and link these shifts to key drivers of forest biodiversity change: climate...

Aims The accurate classification of habitats is essential for effective biodiversity conservation. The goal of this study was to harness the potential of deep learning to advance habitat identification in Europe. We aimed to develop and evaluate models capable of assigning vegetation‐plot records to the habitats of the European Nature Information S...

To achieve the goals of the 2030 Global Biodiversity Framework, the European Biodiversity Strategy, and the EU Green Deal, biodiversity monitoring is critical. Monitoring efforts in Europe, however, suffer from gaps and biases in taxonomy, spatial coverage, and temporal resolution, resulting in fragmented and disconnected data. To assess user and p...

This report discusses the potential synergies of the EBVs developed in each showcase, in conjunction with existing environmental policies, for a comprehensive assessment of European biodiversity.

The report demonstrates the potential workflows to leverage monitoring data on biodiversity to assess the status of two selected habitats of the Habitats Directive, Nardus grasslands (EU habitats directive Annex I 6230*) and forest dominated by Fagus sylvatica on acidic soils (habitat 9110).

EuropaBON EBV workflow templates The information provided here represents the EBV workflow templates collected during the EuropaBON online workshop on Essential Biodiversity Variable (EBV) workflows from 22–24 February 2023. The templates were designed to capture comprehensive descriptions about the three workflow components (data collection and s...

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...

Terrestrial ecosystems affect climate by reflecting solar irradiation, evaporative cooling, and carbon sequestration. Yet very little is known about how plant traits affect climate regulation processes (CRPs) in different habitat types. Here, we used linear and random forest models to relate the community-weighted mean and variance values of 19 pla...

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...

Understanding large‐scale drivers of biodiversity in palustrine wetlands is challenging due to the combined effects of macroclimate and local edaphic conditions. In boreal and temperate fen ecosystems, the influence of macroclimate on biodiversity is modulated by hydrological settings across habitats, making it difficult to assess their vulnerabili...

To implement the goals of the 2030 Global Biodiversity Framework, the European Biodiversity Strategy and the EU Green Deal, biodiversity monitoring is a pivotal instrument to achieve accountability and progress in conservation. Monitoring efforts in Europe, however, suffer from gaps and biases in taxonomy, spatial coverage, and temporal resolution,...

The goal of this task was to identify and characterise novel methods for biodiversity monitoring, and to assess their suitability for large scale deployment across Europe. To address this goal we combined extensive literature searches with expert consultation, namely using a survey and through an online workshop. The outcome of our searches is summ...

Aim Theoretical, experimental and observational studies have shown that biodiversity–ecosystem functioning (BEF) relationships are influenced by functional community structure through two mutually non‐exclusive mechanisms: (1) the dominance effect (which relates to the traits of the dominant species); and (2) the niche partitioning effect [which re...

Increasing the policy impact and effectiveness of biodiversity monitoring in Europe: current state and gaps.

Ecological theory predicts close relationships between macroclimate and functional traits. Yet, global climatic gradients correlate only weakly with the trait composition of local plant communities, suggesting that important factors have been ignored. Here, we investigate the consistency of climate-trait relationships for plant communities in Europ...

Ecological theory predicts close relationships between macroclimate and functional traits. Yet, global climatic gradients correlate only weakly with the trait composition of local plant communities, suggesting that important factors have been ignored. Here, we investigate the consistency of climate-trait relationships for plant communities in Europ...

Aims Oak–hornbeam forests and related vegetation types (phytosociological order Carpinetalia betuli ) are widespread in temperate western Eurasia. However, their national classification systems are poorly compatible, and a broad‐scale classification based on numerical analyses is lacking. Therefore, we aimed to establish a unified formalized classi...

Aims Ellenberg-type indicator values are expert-based rankings of plant species according to their ecological optima on main environmental gradients. Here we extend the indicator-value system proposed by Heinz Ellenberg and co-authors for Central Europe by incorporating other systems of Ellenberg-type indicator values (i.e., those using scales comp...

Vegetation-plot resurvey data are a main source of information on terrestrial biodiversity change, with records reaching back more than one century. although more and more data from re-sampled plots have been published, there is not yet a comprehensive open-access dataset available for analysis. Here, we compiled and harmonised vegetation-plot resu...

Long-term analyses of biodiversity data highlight a ‘biodiversity conservation paradox’: biological communities show substantial species turnover over the past century1,2, but changes in species richness are marginal1,3–5. Most studies, however, have focused only on the incidence of species, and have not considered changes in local abundance. Here...

Functional rarity (FR) — a feature combining a species' rarity with the distinctiveness of its traits — is a promising tool to better understand the ecological importance of rare species and consequently to protect functional diversity more efficiently. However, we lack a systematic understanding of FR on both the species level (which species are f...

Global patterns of regional (gamma) plant diversity are relatively well known, but whether these patterns hold for local communities, and the dependence on spatial grain, remain controversial. Using data on 170,272 georeferenced local plant assemblages, we created global maps of alpha diversity (local species richness) for vascular plants at three...

Vegetation-plot resurvey data are a main source of information on terrestrial biodiversity change, with records reaching back more than one century. Although more and more data from re-sampled plots have been published, there is not yet a comprehensive open-access dataset available for analysis. Here, we compiled and harmonised vegetation-plot resu...

In this report, we present the analysis of the different available biodiversity data streams at the EU and national level, both baseline biodiversity data and monitoring data. We assess how these biodiversity data inform and trigger policy action and identify the related challenges the different European countries and relevant EU agencies face and...

Aims Classification of European bog vegetation ( Oxycocco‐Sphagnetea class); identification of diagnostic species for the class and vegetation subgroups (orders and alliances); development of an expert system for automatic classification of vegetation plots; and production of distribution maps of the Oxycocco‐Sphagnetea class and its alliances. Lo...

Observations are key to understand the drivers of biodiversity loss, and the impacts on ecosystem services and ultimately on people. Many EU policies and initiatives demand unbiased, integrated and regularly updated biodiversity and ecosystem service data. However, efforts to monitor biodiversity are spatially and temporally fragmented, taxonomical...

Niche filtering predicts that abundant species in communities have similar traits that are suitable for the environment. However, niche filtering can operate on distinct axes of trait variation in response to different ecological conditions. Here, we use a trait‐based approach to infer niche filtering processes and (a) test if abundant and rare spe...

Aims : To clarify the syntaxonomic position of the grasslands in Navarre, with special focus on the dry grasslands, and to characterise the resulting syntaxonomic units in terms of diagnostic species and ecological conditions. Study area : Navarre (northern Spain). Methods : We sampled 119 plots of 10 m ² following the standardised EDGG methodology...

Species turnover is ubiquitous. However, it remains unknown whether certain types of species are consistently gained or lost across different habitats. Here, we analysed the trajectories of 1827 plant species over time intervals of up to 78years at 141sites across mountain summits, forests, and lowland grasslands in Europe. We found, albeit with...

Rising temperatures may endanger fragile ecosystems because their character and key species show different habitat affinities under different climates. This assumption has only been tested in limited geographical scales. In fens, one of the most endangered ecosystems in Europe, broader pH niches have been reported from cold areas and are expected f...

Motivation Assessing biodiversity status and trends in plant communities is critical for understanding, quantifying and predicting the effects of global change on ecosystems. Vegetation plots record the occurrence or abundance of all plant species co‐occurring within delimited local areas. This allows species absences to be inferred, information se...

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...

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...

Forest understories play a vital role in ecosystem functioning and the provision of ecosystem services. However, the extent to which environmental conditions drive dominant ecological strategies in forest understories at the continental scale remains understudied. Here, we used ~29 500 forest vegetation plots sampled across Europe and classified in...

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...

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...

Christensen et al. criticized the application of Beals’ index of sociological favourability to adjust for incomplete species lists when comparing repeated surveys. Their main argument was that using Beals’ conditional occurrence probabilities would systematically underestimate biodiversity change compared to using observed frequencies. Although thi...

Aim European grassland communities are highly diverse, but patterns and drivers of continental‐scale diversities remain elusive. This study analyses taxonomic and functional richness in European grasslands along continental‐scale temperature and precipitation gradients. Location Europe. Methods We quantified functional and taxonomic richness of 5...

Aim Plant functional traits summarize the main variability in plant form and function across taxa and biomes. We assess whether geographic range size, climatic niche size, and local abundance of plants can be predicted by sets of traits (trait syndromes) or are driven by single traits. Location Eurasia Methods Species distribution maps were extrac...

Aim This work explores whether the commonly observed positive range size–niche breadth relationship exists for Fagus, one of the most dominant and widespread broad‐leaved deciduous tree genera in temperate forests of the Northern Hemisphere. Additionally, we ask whether the 10 extant Fagus species’ niche breadths and climatic tolerances are under p...

Aim Alpine ecosystems differ in area, macroenvironment and biogeographical history across the Earth, but the relationship between these factors and plant species richness is still unexplored. Here, we assess the global patterns of plant species richness in alpine ecosystems and their association with environmental, geographical and historical facto...

Aim: This work explores whether the commonly observed positive range size–niche breadth relationship exists for Fagus, one of the most dominant and widespread broad-leaved deciduous tree genera in temperate forests of the Northern Hemisphere. Additionally, we ask whether the 10 extant Fagus species’ niche breadths and climatic tolerances are under...

Questions European woodlands harbor at least 386 alien plant species but the factors driving local invasions remain unknown. By using a large vegetation‐plot database, we asked how local richness and abundance of alien species vary by regions, elevation, climate, soil properties, human disturbance, and habitat types. Location Western, Central and S...

Questions What are the functional trade‐offs of vascular plant species in global alpine ecosystems? How is functional variation related to vegetation zones, climatic groups and biogeographic realms? What is the relative contribution of macroclimate and evolutionary history in shaping the functional variation of alpine plant communities? Location G...

The direction and magnitude of long-term changes in local plant species richness are highly variable among studies, while species turnover is ubiquitous. However, it is unknown whether the nature of species turnover is idiosyncratic or whether certain types of species are consistently gained or lost across different habitats. To address this questi...

Based on plant occurrence data covering all parts of Germany, we investigated changes in the distribution of 2136 plant species between 1960 and 2017. We analyzed 29 million occurrence records over an area of ~350,000 km2 on a 5 × 5 km grid using temporal and spatiotemporal models and accounting for sampling bias. Since the 1960s, more than 70% of...

Aim The EUNIS Habitat Classification is a widely used reference framework for European habitat types (habitats), but it lacks formal definitions of individual habitats that would enable their unequivocal identification. Our goal was to develop a tool for assigning vegetation‐plot records to the habitats of the EUNIS system, use it to classify a Eur...

Aim To identify functional traits that best predict community assembly without knowing the underlying environmental drivers. Methods We propose a new method based on the correlation r(XY) between two matrices of potential community composition: the matrix X is fuzzy‐weighted by trait similarities of species, and the matrix Y is derived by Beals sm...

In this article, we identify possibilities and limits of processing as yet unused data sources for spatio-temporal biodiversity trend analyses in Germany. The sMon synthesis project (https://www.idiv.de/smon) of the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig is a joint working group of federal and state authoritie...

Aim: A fundamental question in macroecology centres around understanding the relationship between species’ local abundance and their distribution in geographical and climatic space (i.e. the multi-dimensional climatic space or climatic niche). Here, we tested three macroecological hypotheses that link local abundance to the following range properti...

Aim: A fundamental question in macroecology centres around understanding the relationship between species’ local abundance and their distribution in geographical and climatic space (i.e. the multi-dimensional climatic space or climatic niche). Here, we tested three macroecological hypotheses that link local abundance to the following range properti...

Aim To identify functional traits that best predict community assembly without knowing the driving environmental factors. Methods We propose a new method that is based on the correlation r(XY) between two matrices of potential community composition: matrix X is fuzzy-weighted by trait similarities of species, and matrix Y is derived by Beals smoot...

Based on plant occurrence data covering all parts of Germany, we investigated changes in the distribution of 2136 plant species between 1960 and 2017. We analyzed 29 million occurrence records over an area of approx. 350.000 km^2 on a 5 x 5 km grid using temporal and spatio-temporal models and accounting for sampling bias. Since the 1960s, more tha...