We evaluate the growth and mortality of veteran oaks studied by C. Raunki ae r in a game park in Denmark in 1933. Raunki ae r mapped 664 oaks, of which 329 healthy looking oaks had their girth measured (average girth of 318 cm). Mortality decreased with increasing circumference and was estimated to be 0.426% per year. The healthy-looking trees in 1933 had even lower mortality (0.211% per year). There was no difference in mortality between naturally recruited oaks and those planted in the 1830s. These mortality estimates were lower than in previous reports of oaks, veteran trees and large tropical trees, presumably because these oaks were in a non-crowded, non-forested situation. When girth was measured after 50 growing seasons, they had grown an average of 1.33 cm per year. However, the growth rate of these initially healthy trees was highly variable and could be partially explained by the initial tree size. Taking this into account, statistical models suggest that a 300 cm circumference oak in 1933, measured at breast height (130 cm), would have grown 1.28 cm per year in circumference, corresponding to radial growth of 0.20 cm per year and basal area increment of 71.0 cm2 per year.

Responses to climate change have often been found to lag behind the rate of warming that has occurred. In addition to dispersal limitation potentially restricting spread at leading range margins, the persistence of species in new and unsuitable conditions is thought to be responsible for apparent time-lags. Soil seed banks can allow plant communities to temporarily buffer unsuitable environmental conditions, but their potential to slow responses to long-term climate change is largely unknown. As local forest cover can also buffer the effects of a warming climate, it is important to understand how seed banks might interact with land cover to mediate community responses to climate change. We first related species-level seed bank persistence and distribution-derived climatic niches for 840 plant species. We then used a database of plant community data from grasslands, forests and intermediate successional habitats from across Europe to investigate relationships between seed banks and their corresponding herb layers in 2763 plots in the context of climate and land cover. We found that species from warmer climates and with broader distributions are more likely to have a higher seed bank persistence, resulting in seed banks that are composed of species with warmer and broader climatic distributions than their corresponding herb layers. This was consistent across our climatic extent, with larger differences (seed banks from even warmer climates relative to vegetation) found in grasslands. Synthesis. Seed banks have been shown to buffer plant communities through periods of environmental variability, and in a period of climate change might be expected to contain species reflecting past, cooler conditions. Here, we show that persistent seed banks often contain species with relatively warm climatic niches and those with wide climatic ranges. Although these patterns may not be primarily driven by species climatic adaptations, the prominence of such species in seed banks might still facilitate climate-driven community shifts. Additionally, seed banks may be related to ongoing trends regarding the spread of widespread generalist species into natural habitats, while cool-associated species may be at risk from both short- and long-term climatic variability and change.

Plant phenology, i. e. the timing of life cycle events, is related to individual fitness and species distribution ranges. Temperature is one of the most important drivers of plant phenology together with day length. The adaptation of their phenology may be important for the success of invasive plant species. The present study aims at understanding how the performance and the phenology of the invasive legume Lupinus polyphyllus vary with latitude. We sampled data across a >2000 km latitudinal gradient from Central to Northern Europe. We quantified variation in phenology of flowering and fruiting of L. polyphyllus using >1600 digital photos of inflorescences from 220 individual plants observed weekly at 22 sites. The day of the year at which different phenological phases were reached, increased 1.3–1.8 days per degree latitude, whereas the growing degree days (gdd) required for these phenological phases decreased 5–16 gdd per degree latitude. However, this difference disappeared, when the day length of each day included in the calculation of gdd was considered. The day of the year of the earliest and the latest climatic zone to reach any of the three studied phenological phases differed by 23–30 days and temperature requirements to reach these stages differed between 62 and 236 gdd. Probably, the invasion of this species will further increase in the northern part of Europe over the next decades due to climate warming. For invasive species control, our results suggest that in countries with a large latitudinal extent, the mowing date should shift by ca. one week per 500 km at sites with similar elevations.

Plant phenology, i. e. the timing of life cycle events, is related to individual fitness and species distribution ranges. Among the environmental factors, phenology is mostly driven by temperature and day length. Rapid adaptation of their phenology may also be important for the success of invasive plant species. Our main aim was to understand how the performance, timing, and temperature dependence of the phenology of the invasive legume Lupinus polyphyllus varies with latitude. L. polyphyllus is one of the most frequent invasive species in Europe, and the gained information may help to make management more effective by adjustments to latitude and phenology.

Methods:

We quantified variation in phenology across a >2000 km latitudinal gradient from Central to Northern Europe. We sampled data of flowering and fruiting of L. polyphyllus using >1600 digital photos of inflorescences from 220 individual plants observed weekly at 22 locations. We calculated the accumulated growing degree days for each observation date at each site from the temperature data of the meteorological stations, which are listed in the metadata of the dataset.

Clear-cuts in production forests provide  an open, sunny environment, with an abundance of nectar, as well as exposed soil and woody debris. This makes them a potential habitat for several groups of insects that typically use open habitats like grassland, including those species that visit flowers. In the current study, we used colour pan traps to catch flower-visiting species. Study sites were selected according to age (2-8 yrs since clear-cut) and land-use history (forest or meadow 150 yrs ago). We caught and identified solitary bees (395 specimens belonging to 59 species), social bees (831/16), other Hymenoptera (367/66), Syrphidae (256/31), and beetles (Lepturinae & Cetoniinae; 11,409/12). Age of the clear-cut strongly affected species composition as well as several of the groups and species, with most species caught mainly in the younger clear-cuts. Flower abundance statistically affected several groups and species, but such effects are potentially suspect due to the flower-richness bias in pan trap catches. Bare soil and woody debris seemed irrelevant were important for the insect assemblage sampled, while bare rock sometimes positively affected flower-visiting insectswas not. Although the majority of the insects caught were forest species, about one third of the species were associated with open, agricultural sites and hence seem to be able to locate and exploit resources in clear-cuts.

We introduce the AusTraits database - a compilation of values of plant traits for taxa in the Australian flora (hereafter AusTraits). AusTraits synthesises data on 448 traits across 28,640 taxa from field campaigns, published literature, taxonomic monographs, and individual taxon descriptions. Traits vary in scope from physiological measures of performance (e.g. photosynthetic gas exchange, water-use efficiency) to morphological attributes (e.g. leaf area, seed mass, plant height) which link to aspects of ecological variation. AusTraits contains curated and harmonised individual- and species-level measurements coupled to, where available, contextual information on site properties and experimental conditions. This article provides information on version 3.0.2 of AusTraits which contains data for 997,808 trait-by-taxon combinations. We envision AusTraits as an ongoing collaborative initiative for easily archiving and sharing trait data, which also provides a template for other national or regional initiatives globally to fill persistent gaps in trait knowledge.

When assessing changes in populations of species it is essential that the methods used to collect data have some level of precision and preferably also good accuracy. One commonly used method to collect pollinators is colour pan-traps, but this method has been suggested to be biased by the abundance of surrounding flowers. The present study evaluated the relationship between pan-trap catches and the frequency of flowers on small (25 m2) and large (2-6 ha) spatial scales. If pan-traps work well, one should assume a positive relationship, i.e. more insects caught when they have more food. However, in contrast, we found that catches in pan-traps were often negatively affected by flower frequency. Among the six taxa evaluated, the negative bias was largest in Vespoidea and Lepturinae, while there was no bias in solitary Apoidea (Cetoniidae, Syrphidae and social Apoidea were intermediate). Furthermore, red flowers seemed to contribute most to the negative bias. There was also a tendency that the negative bias differed within the flight season and that is was higher when considering the large spatial scale compared to the small one. To conclude, pan-trap catches may suffer from a negative bias due to surrounding flower frequency and colour. The occurrence and magnitude of the negative bias was context and taxon dependent, and therefore difficult to adjust for. Thus, pan-traps seems less suited to evaluate differences between sites and the effect of restoration, when gradients in flower density is large. Instead, it seems better suited to monitor population changes within sites, and when gradients are small.

Methods 

STUDY SITES: Data were collected in 2015 in the province of Östergötland, southern Sweden. The landscape in the study area consists mainly of coniferous forest, but there are also bogs, lakes, small patches of seminatural grasslands and arable fields. Twelve clear-cuts were selected (2-6 ha and logged 4-6 years prior). Six of them had been marked as coniferous forests on maps from the 1870s when the other six were marked as meadows. Clear-cuts on former meadows have higher amounts of herbs than clear-cuts which were formerly forests. Hence, our site selection strategy covered the wide range of flower abundances that occur on clear-cuts in the study area. 

PAN-TRAPS: The pans used to collect pollinators were painted in one of the following colours: blue, white and yellow with UV-reflecting-colour (Soppec, Sylva mark fluo marker, Nersac, France). The pans had a diameter of 8.7 cm, a volume of 0.5 L and were filled with non-toxic propylene glycol (40% concentration), to conserve the pollinators and to decrease the surface tension. A small opening (4 mm in diameter) at the top of each bowl was made to ensure that rainwater could drain. One set of pan-trap consisted of three pans, one in each colour, placed on a steel stick.

Four sets of pan-traps were placed in each clear-cut, in the same height as the vegetation and in places that were considered representative for the clear-cut. During the main flight period of most pollinating insects, three sampling periods were conducted: in the beginnings of June, beginning of July and beginning of August. Each period lasted for one week and had at least some days with more than 17°C and wind velocity less than four on the Beaufort scale. The pans were covered with caps between collecting periods. When a new collecting period started, some sets of pan-traps were moved - at most 30 cm - or some of the vegetation was removed to prevent overgrowth.

In total there were 48 set of pan-traps collecting during each period, but a few sets of pan-traps had been knocked down by animals and were therefore excluded (1, 1 and 2 during the first, second and third period, respectively). In addition, a single blue pan went missing during the second period. 

Four taxonomic groups dominated the catches – Aculeata, Lepturinae, Cetoniidae and Syrphidae – and they were identified to species-level. Aculeata was subdivided as solitary Apoidea, social Apoidea (Bombus spp. Apis mellifera), and Vespoidea (including one species of Chrysidoidea). Other insects caught, that are not identified, were mainly small Coleoptera, small Lepidoptera and Symphyta.

FLOWER FREQUENCY: The clear-cuts were photographed in conjunction with each collecting period to estimate flower frequency. A 1 m2 square was placed on the ground and photographed from above (from c 160 cm height). Around each pan-trap, at least 25 such 1 m2 squares were photographed reflecting small-scale flower abundance (“trap scale”). An additional at least 100 pictures were systematically distributed along transects over the whole clear-cut reflecting large-scale (“clear-cut scale”) flower abundance. Photos were taken during each collecting period, or at most 5 days before or after. 

All 8048 photos taken were inspected to see if they held flowers within the 1-m2 square and if so of which colours (red, yellow, blue and white). The frequencies of colours (i) around set of pan-traps, and (ii) on clear-cuts were expressed as the odds for the colour occurring in a square metre plot: (0.5+p)/(0.5+(1-p)), where p=frequency of photos with the colour. Also, we calculated the odds for flower of any colour occurring in a plot.

Both agricultural intensification and abandonment have led to the loss of European semi-natural grasslands. Nature conservation management measures like mowing are essential for preserving the biodiversity of remaining grasslands. However, there are no conclusive results from studies examining effects of different mowing frequencies across Europe. To fill this gap, we evaluated data from European studies comparing mowing frequencies to determine which are the most beneficial from a nature conservation viewpoint. We searched literature for short- and long-term studies comparing the effects of different mowing frequencies on outcome measures relevant for biodiversity conservation. We found 29 relevant studies where mowing once per year was compared to higher or lower mowing frequencies. The studies covered various grassland types and organisms. The effects were analysed using response ratios, where mowing once per year, i.e. the traditional mowing frequency in semi-natural grasslands, was compared to mowing every fifth, third or second year and mowing two, three or four times a year. Overall, we found similar effects of the different mowing frequencies on the biodiversity of flora and fauna. More frequent mowing generally had a more positive effect, but differences between frequencies were small. Effects were habitat-specific, differing between site and study conditions. For example, a higher mowing frequency was more beneficial in more productive grasslands. These results suggest that in most European semi-natural grasslands, mowing less frequently is a way of using the limited funds available for management more efficiently while still maintaining grassland conservation values, but e.g. site productivity must be considered when determining a suitable mowing frequency.

Old living oaks (Quercus robur) are known as a very species-rich habitat for saproxylic beetles, but it is less clear to what extent such veteran trees differ from an even rarer feature: downed trunks of large oaks. In this study, we set out to sample this habitat, using window traps, with two aims: (1) to describe the variation of assemblages among downed trunks of different type and (2) to compare beetles on downed oaks with data from veteran standing trees. The results showed that trunk volume and sun exposure better explained assemblages as well as species numbers on downed trunks than did decay stage. Furthermore, species classified as facultative saproxylic species showed weak or no differentiation among downed trunks. Species with different feeding habits showed no apparent differentiation among downed trunks. Furthermore, species composition on dead, downed oak trunks differed sharply from that of living, veteran oaks. Wood or bark feeders were more common on veterans than downed trunks, but there was no difference for those species feeding on fungi or those feeding on insects and their remains. In conclusion, for a successful conservation of the saproxylic beetle fauna it is important to keep downed oak trunks, and particularly large ones, in forest and pastures as they constitute a saproxylic habitat that differs from that of living trees.