University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna (BOKU) - Research portal
Gewählte Master / Diploma Thesis:
Karin Nicole Aschauer
(2014):
Characterization and Evaluation of Danube Floodplain Soils South-East of Bratislava as Plant Habitat.
Master / Diploma Thesis - Institut für Bodenforschung (IBF),
BOKU-Universität für Bodenkultur,
pp 51.
UB BOKU
obvsg
- Abstract:
- Although the description of abiotic factors underlying patterns of plant species composition in floodplains has received increasing attention in recent years, little attention has been paid to small spatial scales. In an interdisciplinary study linking plant sociology, soil characteristics as well as environmental conditions, we therefore aimed at clarifying which abiotic factors have the most decisive impact on plant species composition at a local scale. Six Populus alba communities which developed on young alluvial sediments of the River Danube south-east of Bratislava were studied in detail from a phytosociological and physicochemical point of view. Multivariate analyses of variance (MANOVA) showed significant differences between the sites regarding soil nutrient stocks, soil texture as well as water retention characteristics which were reinforced by principal component analysis (PCA). Biogeochemical-mechanistic ecosystem modelling on the basis of data from 2000 to 2011 also underlined discriminating effects of soil texture influencing water storage in the studied soils. Plant species composition was related to the measured environmental parameters using canonical correspondence analysis (CCA). Clustering of sites within CCA and PCA plots has lead us to distinguish between two main plant habitats among the six sites: floodplains offering (a) moister and more nutrient-rich conditions and (b) seasonally dryer and nutrient-poorer conditions. Our study therefore highlights that the nature of soil at the local scale, shaped by small changes of physicochemical properties, plays a key role in determining plant species composition. Additionally, management and groundwater abstraction were found to artificially render soil conditions dryer despite favourable conditions for water retention in plant-available form. The present study therefore also underlines the decisive influence human activities exert on plant species composition already at a small spatial scale.
- Beurteilende(r): Rampazzo Nicola
- 1.Mitwirkender: Lair Georg