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Article Dans Une Revue Biology Année : 2023

Ellenberg Indicator Values Disclose Complex Environmental Filtering Processes in Plant Communities along an Elevational Gradient

Les valeurs de l'indicateur Ellenberg révèlent des processus complexes de filtrage environnemental dans les communautés végétales le long d'un gradient élévation

Résumé

Plant species of a regional flora have different ecological preferences, leading to the presence of different assemblages along environmental gradients. Botanists elaborated score systems to express species preferences for environmental factors, such as temperature, light, soil moisture, etc. The most popular system is that of the ‘Ellenberg indicator values’ (EIVs). EIVs have been largely applied to use plant species as indicators of environmental characteristics. In this research, we adopted a different perspective, and used EIVs to study how species are filtered by variations in ecological conditions along an elevational gradient. We used the flora of a small mountain in Central Italy as our case study. We found that heat-loving species are progressively replaced by cold-adapted ones at increasing elevations. Sunlight-adapted species prevail at low and high elevations (where open habitats occur), whereas in the middle of the gradient (occupied by the beech forest) shade-loving species predominate. Variation for moisture and soil nutrient preferences followed a similar pattern since humus abundance makes forest soils moister and richer in nutrients. Preferences for pH and continentality did not follow any clear pattern, since these factors are subject to more local variations. These results highlight the possible use of EIVs to study how plant communities respond to environmental gradients.
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hal-04505117 , version 1 (14-03-2024)

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Letizia Di Biase, Noelline Tsafack, Loretta Pace, Simone Fattorini. Ellenberg Indicator Values Disclose Complex Environmental Filtering Processes in Plant Communities along an Elevational Gradient. Biology, 2023, 12, ⟨10.3390/biology12020161⟩. ⟨hal-04505117⟩
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