Abstract
Most studies of grassland plant diversity have focused on the spatial properties of habitat fragments within the modern agricultural landscape. However, it is increasingly clear that an understanding of the processes that maintain or deplete species diversity requires a temporal as well as a spatial perspective. Strategies for the sustainable management of species-diverse grasslands need to be based on an understanding of interactions between the dispersal properties of species and temporal changes in habitat connectivity. We have assembled a GIS database containing detailed information on local landscape structure and land-use change over the last three centuries. We will use this study system to evaluate different statistical approaches to the description of grassland connectivity. We will assess the extent to which different connectivity descriptors, applied to modern and historical landscape data, are significant predictors of present diversity. Field data (for selected species) and information from species-databases and the literature will be used to create individual and composite dispersal profiles for grassland species and species assemblages. We will then relate these profiles to species-presence/diversity in grassland patches in the modern landscape. Finally, we will assess the relative importance of past/present spatial connectivity and dispersal characteristics as predictors of species-occurrences and species diversity in grassland fragments.
Sweden