Evidence for the importance of land use, site characteristics and vegetation composition for rooting in European Alps

Abstract Plant rooting strongly affects most hydrological, biogeochemical and ecological processes in terrestrial ecosystems, as it presents the main pathway for carbon, water and nutrient transfer from soil to the atmosphere and is a key factor in stabilizing the soil layer. Few studies have actual...

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Autores principales:	Erich Tasser, Sonja Gamper, Janette Walde, Nikolaus Obojes, Ulrike Tappeiner
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Nature Portfolio 2021
Materias:	Medicine R Science Q
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/0a655bb1242e41a8a0776cb3562f8840
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:0a655bb1242e41a8a0776cb3562f88402021-12-02T15:49:50ZEvidence for the importance of land use, site characteristics and vegetation composition for rooting in European Alps10.1038/s41598-021-90652-22045-2322https://doaj.org/article/0a655bb1242e41a8a0776cb3562f88402021-05-01T00:00:00Zhttps://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-90652-2https://doaj.org/toc/2045-2322Abstract Plant rooting strongly affects most hydrological, biogeochemical and ecological processes in terrestrial ecosystems, as it presents the main pathway for carbon, water and nutrient transfer from soil to the atmosphere and is a key factor in stabilizing the soil layer. Few studies have actually investigated the link between phytosociological and structural vegetation composition and diversity in soil rooting parameters. Our study provides a comprehensive evaluation of plant cover and diversity effects on rooting parameters dependent on different land-use types along a north–south transect in the Eastern Alps. We conducted field studies of root biomass, rooting density and rooting depth for the six main land-use types: intensively and lightly used hay meadows, pastures, arable land, agriculturally unused grasslands and forests. The variation in rooting parameters was explained by different aspects of species and functional richness, species and functional composition, functional traits, abundance of key species and site variables depending on the land-use types. Our results showed that different characteristics of biodiversity explained the variance in root parameters (mass, density and depth) to a high degree (determination coefficient R2 values varied between 0.621 and 0.891). All rooting parameters increased with increasing plant species richness, as well as with a higher diversity of plant functional traits. The inclusion of site parameters significantly increased the explained variance, while we could not find evidence for key species and their abundance to provide additional explanatory power. Allowing the effects to vary depending on land-use types turned out to be a necessity supporting the importance of considering land-use types for rooting. The findings indicate that vegetation composition has a clear relationship with rooting parameters across different habitats in the European Alps. As the effect of plant composition differs with respect to the land-use type, rooting can be monitored by land management to achieve the desired benefits. For example, intensified rooting through extensive management decreases erosion risk and increases carbon uptake.Erich TasserSonja GamperJanette WaldeNikolaus ObojesUlrike TappeinerNature PortfolioarticleMedicineRScienceQENScientific Reports, Vol 11, Iss 1, Pp 1-15 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Medicine R Science Q
spellingShingle	Medicine R Science Q Erich Tasser Sonja Gamper Janette Walde Nikolaus Obojes Ulrike Tappeiner Evidence for the importance of land use, site characteristics and vegetation composition for rooting in European Alps
description	Abstract Plant rooting strongly affects most hydrological, biogeochemical and ecological processes in terrestrial ecosystems, as it presents the main pathway for carbon, water and nutrient transfer from soil to the atmosphere and is a key factor in stabilizing the soil layer. Few studies have actually investigated the link between phytosociological and structural vegetation composition and diversity in soil rooting parameters. Our study provides a comprehensive evaluation of plant cover and diversity effects on rooting parameters dependent on different land-use types along a north–south transect in the Eastern Alps. We conducted field studies of root biomass, rooting density and rooting depth for the six main land-use types: intensively and lightly used hay meadows, pastures, arable land, agriculturally unused grasslands and forests. The variation in rooting parameters was explained by different aspects of species and functional richness, species and functional composition, functional traits, abundance of key species and site variables depending on the land-use types. Our results showed that different characteristics of biodiversity explained the variance in root parameters (mass, density and depth) to a high degree (determination coefficient R2 values varied between 0.621 and 0.891). All rooting parameters increased with increasing plant species richness, as well as with a higher diversity of plant functional traits. The inclusion of site parameters significantly increased the explained variance, while we could not find evidence for key species and their abundance to provide additional explanatory power. Allowing the effects to vary depending on land-use types turned out to be a necessity supporting the importance of considering land-use types for rooting. The findings indicate that vegetation composition has a clear relationship with rooting parameters across different habitats in the European Alps. As the effect of plant composition differs with respect to the land-use type, rooting can be monitored by land management to achieve the desired benefits. For example, intensified rooting through extensive management decreases erosion risk and increases carbon uptake.
format	article
author	Erich Tasser Sonja Gamper Janette Walde Nikolaus Obojes Ulrike Tappeiner
author_facet	Erich Tasser Sonja Gamper Janette Walde Nikolaus Obojes Ulrike Tappeiner
author_sort	Erich Tasser
title	Evidence for the importance of land use, site characteristics and vegetation composition for rooting in European Alps
title_short	Evidence for the importance of land use, site characteristics and vegetation composition for rooting in European Alps
title_full	Evidence for the importance of land use, site characteristics and vegetation composition for rooting in European Alps
title_fullStr	Evidence for the importance of land use, site characteristics and vegetation composition for rooting in European Alps
title_full_unstemmed	Evidence for the importance of land use, site characteristics and vegetation composition for rooting in European Alps
title_sort	evidence for the importance of land use, site characteristics and vegetation composition for rooting in european alps
publisher	Nature Portfolio
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/0a655bb1242e41a8a0776cb3562f8840
work_keys_str_mv	AT erichtasser evidencefortheimportanceoflandusesitecharacteristicsandvegetationcompositionforrootingineuropeanalps AT sonjagamper evidencefortheimportanceoflandusesitecharacteristicsandvegetationcompositionforrootingineuropeanalps AT janettewalde evidencefortheimportanceoflandusesitecharacteristicsandvegetationcompositionforrootingineuropeanalps AT nikolausobojes evidencefortheimportanceoflandusesitecharacteristicsandvegetationcompositionforrootingineuropeanalps AT ulriketappeiner evidencefortheimportanceoflandusesitecharacteristicsandvegetationcompositionforrootingineuropeanalps
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Evidence for the importance of land use, site characteristics and vegetation composition for rooting in European Alps

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