Erosion of plant diversity and loss of function: How much, how soon?

The ecological mechanisms that control how much and how quickly plant communities change are poorly understood.

Shifts in species composition after nitrogen deposition, habitat loss and landscape intensification often fail to follow expected patterns of “winning” and “losing” species, at least in the short term. As such, it remains difficult to predict the extent of ongoing change in biodiversity and ecosystem functions.

We aim to address this knowledge gap, quantifying how species traits, local environment and wider landscape configuration interact to influence plant community change, and how within-species trait variation helps threatened populations to persist in unfavourable conditions.

We will also explore how accounting for varying rates of change can improve predictions of future plant biodiversity, given landscape and environmental changes typical of European landscapes.

We will use the Countryside Survey of Great Britain, a dataset with measurements of plant composition and environmental variables at 591 locations over a 40-year period (N=18000 quadrats).

Through applying this powerful spatiotemporal dataset in combination with recently developed statistical and theoretical frameworks in community ecology (joint species distribution modelling, advances in structural equation modelling and the incorporation of species’ adaptive capacity into models of ecological change), we will provide new insight into the fundamental mechanisms which mediate plant community change.