@article{KolkNaafWulf2017,
  author    = {Kolk, Jens and Naaf, Tobias and Wulf, Monika},
  title     = {Paying the colonization credit},
  series = {Biodiversity and conservation},
  volume    = {26},
  journal   = {Biodiversity and conservation},
  publisher = {Springer},
  address   = {Dordrecht},
  issn      = {0960-3115},
  doi       = {10.1007/s10531-016-1271-y},
  pages     = {735 -- 755},
  year      = {2017},
  abstract  = {Massive historical land cover changes in the Central European lowlands have resulted in a forest distribution that now comprises small remnants of ancient forests and more recently established post-agricultural forests. Here, land-use history is considered a key driver of recent herb-layer community changes, where an extinction debt in ancient forest remnants and/or a colonization credit in post-agricultural forests are being paid over time. On a regional scale, these payments should in theory lead toward a convergence in species richness between ancient and post-agricultural forests over time. In this study, we tested this assumption with a resurvey of 117 semi-permanent plots in the well-studied deciduous forests of the Prignitz region (Brandenburg, NE Germany), where we knew that the plant communities of post-agricultural stands exhibit a colonization credit while the extinction debt in ancient stands has largely been paid. We compared changes in the species richness of all herb layer species, forest specialists and ancient forest indicator species between ancient and post-agricultural stands with linear mixed effect models and determined the influence of patch connectivity on the magnitude of species richness changes. Species richness increased overall, but the richness of forest specialists increased significantly more in post-agricultural stands and was positively influenced by higher patch connectivity, indicating a convergence in species richness between the ancient and postagricultural stands. Furthermore, the richness of ancient forest indicator species only increased significantly in post-agricultural stands. For the first time, we were able to verify a gradual payment of the colonization credit in post-agricultural forest stands using a comparison of actual changes in temporal species richness.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{DeLombaerdeVerheyenPerringetal.2018,
  author    = {De Lombaerde, Emiel and Verheyen, Kris and Perring, Michael P. and Bernhardt-Roemermann, Markus and Van Calster, Hans and Brunet, Jorg and Chudomelova, Marketa and Decocq, Guillaume and Diekmann, Martin and Durak, Tomasz and Hedl, Radim and Heinken, Thilo and Hommel, Patrick and Jaroszewicz, Bogdan and Kopecky, Martin and Lenoir, Jonathan and Macek, Martin and M{\´a}liš, František and Mitchell, Fraser J. G. and Naaf, Tobias and Newman, Miles and Petř{\´i}k, Petr and Reczyńska, Kamila and Schmidt, Wolfgang and Swierkosz, Krzysztof and Vild, Ondrej and Wulf, Monika and Baetena, Lander},
  title     = {Responses of competitive understorey species to spatial environmental gradients inaccurately explain temporal changes},
  series = {Basic and applied ecology : Journal of the Gesellschaft f{\"u}r {\"O}kologie},
  volume    = {30},
  journal   = {Basic and applied ecology : Journal of the Gesellschaft f{\"u}r {\"O}kologie},
  publisher = {Elsevier GMBH},
  address   = {M{\"u}nchen},
  issn      = {1439-1791},
  doi       = {10.1016/j.baae.2018.05.013},
  pages     = {52 -- 64},
  year      = {2018},
  abstract  = {Understorey plant communities play a key role in the functioning of forest ecosystems. Under favourable environmental conditions, competitive understorey species may develop high abundances and influence important ecosystem processes such as tree regeneration. Thus, understanding and predicting the response of competitive understorey species as a function of changing environmental conditions is important for forest managers. In the absence of sufficient temporal data to quantify actual vegetation changes, space-for-time (SFT) substitution is often used, i.e. studies that use environmental gradients across space to infer vegetation responses to environmental change over time. Here we assess the validity of such SFT approaches and analysed 36 resurvey studies from ancient forests with low levels of recent disturbances across temperate Europe to assess how six competitive understorey plant species respond to gradients of overstorey cover, soil conditions, atmospheric N deposition and climatic conditions over space and time. The combination of historical and contemporary surveys allows (i) to test if observed contemporary patterns across space are consistent at the time of the historical survey, and, crucially, (ii) to assess whether changes in abundance over time given recorded environmental change match expectations from patterns recorded along environmental gradients in space. We found consistent spatial relationships at the two periods: local variation in soil variables and overstorey cover were the best predictors of individual species' cover while interregional variation in coarse-scale variables, i.e. N deposition and climate, was less important. However, we found that our SFT approach could not accurately explain the large variation in abundance changes over time. We thus recommend to be cautious when using SFT substitution to infer species responses to temporal changes.},
  language  = {en}
}