Journal article
Environmental heterogeneity promotes floristic turnover in temperate forests of south-eastern Australia more than dispersal limitation and disturbance
S Kasel, LT Bennett, C Aponte, M Fedrigo, CR Nitschke
Landscape Ecology | SPRINGER | Published : 2017
Abstract
Context: Australia’s temperate forest landscapes encompass broad topographic and edaphic ranges, and are regularly disturbed by fire. Nonetheless, relative contributions of environmental heterogeneity, disturbance regimes, and dispersal limitations to plant species turnover remain poorly understood. Objectives: To evaluate the relative influences of deterministic (environmental, disturbance), and stochastic (spatial) processes on plant species turnover [beta-diversity (β diversity)] in natural forest landscapes, and how such influences vary among plant functional types and vegetation strata. Methods: We assessed the environment and species composition of 81 forest stands, representing a rang..
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Funding Acknowledgements
This research was undertaken with Approval by the Victorian Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP) under Research Permit Numbers 10006440, 10006691 and 10007105. The work was funded by the Victorian DELWP iFER (Integrated Forest Ecosystem Research) program as well as the CSIRO Sustainable Agriculture Flagship Program. We would like to thank those who contributed to data collection and processing, including B. Smith, J. Najera, D. Lockwood and L. Parker. We thank two anonymous reviewers for comments that improved the manuscript.