Species richness of woody plants in the landscapes of Central Spain: the role of management disturbances, environment and non-stationarity

Abstract

How important is management disturbance on gamma species richness of woody plants at intermediate landscape scales? How is species richness related to other climatic and biotic factors in the study area? How does the assumption of spatial stationarity affect assessment of relationships among species richness and explanatory variables (e.g. management, biotic and climatic factors) across extensive study areas?

This research was funded by the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovaci ´on (Spain) and the FEDER funds through the IBEPFOR (CGL2006-00312/BOS), MONTES CONSOLIDER (CSD2008-00040) and Restauraci ´on y Gesti ´on Forestal (PSE-310000-2009) projects. A. Gil-Tena benefited from a pre-doctoral grant with support of the CUR of the DIUE and the European Social Fund. Information on the SFM and the 3SNFI was provided by the Ministerio de Medio Ambiente y Medio Rural y Marino (Spain). We thank Dr. Martin Charlton and Dr. Pilar Mart´ın de Agar for their advice on data analysis. We also thank four anonymous reviewers for their very valuable comments on an earlier version of this manuscript.