A novel method to estimate the response of habitat types to nitrogen deposition.

Increasing nitrogen depositions adversely affect European landscapes, including habitats within the Natura2000 network. Critical loads for nitrogen deposition have been established to quantify the loss of habitat quality. When the nitrogen deposition rises above a habitat-specific critical load, the quality of the focal habitat is expected to be negatively influenced.

The contribution of nitrogen deposition to the eutrophication signal in understorey plant communities of European forests.

We evaluated effects of atmospheric deposition of nitrogen on the composition of forest understorey vegetation both in space and time, using repeated data from the European wide monitoring program ICP-Forests, which focuses on normally managed forest. Our aim was to assess whether both spatial and temporal effects of deposition can be detected by a multiple regression approach using data from managed forests over a relatively short time interval, in which changes in the tree layer are limited. To characterize the vegetation, we used indicators derived from cover percentages per species using multivariate statistics and indicators derived from the presence/absence, that is, species numbers and Ellenberg's indicator values.

Year-round grazing to counteract effects of atmospheric nitrogen deposition may aggravate these effects.

Excessive nitrogen input in natural ecosystems is a major threat to biodiversity. A coastal dune area near Amsterdam in the Netherlands suffers from high atmospheric nitrogen deposition affecting sensitive habitats such as fixed coastal dunes with herbaceous vegetation ('grey dunes'). To mitigate its effect year round grazing was applied from 2007 until 2012.

Leaf habit and woodiness regulate different leaf economy traits at a given nutrient supply.

The large variation in the relationships between environmental factors and plant traits observed in natural communities exemplifies the alternative solutions that plants have developed in response to the same environmental limitations. Qualitative attributes, such as growth form, woodiness, and leaf habit can be used to approximate these alternative solutions. Here, we quantified the extent to which these attributes affect leaf trait values at a given resource supply level, using measured plant traits from 105 different species (254 observations) distributed across 50 sites in mesic to wet plant communities in The Netherlands.

Is bark pH more important than tree species in determining the composition of nitrophytic or acidophytic lichen floras?

To study the pH preference of epiphytic lichens, the bark pH of Fraxinus, Tilia, Quercus and Ulmus trees in an urban environment was measured using a flat surface electrode. The total number of trees was 253. A survey was made of the lichens in a 40 × 40 cm quadrat surrounding the pH measurement point.