Ecological processes such as seed dispersal or plant\uffe2\uff80\uff93plant interactions and environmental constraints such as climate or soil heterogeneity are known to influence establishment, and thus the spatial patterns of plant communities and populations. In this study, we hypothesized that key functional traits such as the specific leaf area (SLA), reproductive ratio (reproductive/vegetative biomass), seed mass and maximum plant height would influence the spatial patterns of individual species in annual, gypsophilous plant communities, and that these effects would be modulated by both the soil surface structure (biocrust) and climate (precipitation) conditions.
We mapped the spatial patterns of all plants found in six 1\uffe2\uff80\uff89\uffc3\uff97\uffe2\uff80\uff891\uffc2\uffa0m plots (more than 1000 individuals per plot) in both the seedling (autumn) and adult stages (spring) under two biocrust experimental conditions (intact vs. disturbed biocrust) during two consecutive years which were contrasted in term of precipitation (dry year and wet year). To assess the spatial patterns of seedlings and adults, we fitted four different spatial point pattern models (i.e. Poisson, inhomogeneous Poisson, Poisson cluster and inhomogeneous Poisson cluster processes) to each of the 242 populations of the 26 most abundant species that had more than 15 individuals per plot.
Most seedling populations exhibited clustered spatial patterns that persisted in the adult stage, which suggests that short\uffe2\uff80\uff90distance dispersal is an adaptive trait for soil specialists such as gypsophilous plants. One\uffe2\uff80\uff90third of the populations fitted an inhomogeneous model best but the physical structure of the biocrust was not related to them. More importantly, we found a connection between the functional strategies of species and the spatial distribution of plants. In particular, during the dry year, irrespective of the biocrust conditions, species with a high SLA and high Rep/Veg mainly exhibited clustered spatial patterns, whereas low SLA and low Rep/Veg were associated with random distributions. Species with heavy and light seed masses had random and clustered patterns, respectively. In both the dry and wet years, species with lower maximum heights had clustered patterns, whereas taller species exhibited random patterns. In addition, species with heavier seeds and greater maximum heights had the largest cluster sizes.
Our results confirm that the spatial patterns of seedlings and adult plants are significantly determined by the functional strategy of each species.
Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.
Ecological processes such as seed dispersal or plant\uffe2\uff80\uff93plant interactions and environmental constraints such as climate or soil heterogeneity are known to influence establishment, and thus the spatial patterns of plant communities and populations. In this study, we hypothesized that key functional traits such as the specific leaf area (SLA), reproductive ratio (reproductive/vegetative biomass), seed mass and maximum plant height would influence the spatial patterns of individual species in annual, gypsophilous plant communities, and that these effects would be modulated by both the soil surface structure (biocrust) and climate (precipitation) conditions.
We mapped the spatial patterns of all plants found in six 1\uffe2\uff80\uff89\uffc3\uff97\uffe2\uff80\uff891\uffc2\uffa0m plots (more than 1000 individuals per plot) in both the seedling (autumn) and adult stages (spring) under two biocrust experimental conditions (intact vs. disturbed biocrust) during two consecutive years which were contrasted in term of precipitation (dry year and wet year). To assess the spatial patterns of seedlings and adults, we fitted four different spatial point pattern models (i.e. Poisson, inhomogeneous Poisson, Poisson cluster and inhomogeneous Poisson cluster processes) to each of the 242 populations of the 26 most abundant species that had more than 15 individuals per plot.
Most seedling populations exhibited clustered spatial patterns that persisted in the adult stage, which suggests that short\uffe2\uff80\uff90distance dispersal is an adaptive trait for soil specialists such as gypsophilous plants. One\uffe2\uff80\uff90third of the populations fitted an inhomogeneous model best but the physical structure of the biocrust was not related to them. More importantly, we found a connection between the functional strategies of species and the spatial distribution of plants. In particular, during the dry year, irrespective of the biocrust conditions, species with a high SLA and high Rep/Veg mainly exhibited clustered spatial patterns, whereas low SLA and low Rep/Veg were associated with random distributions. Species with heavy and light seed masses had random and clustered patterns, respectively. In both the dry and wet years, species with lower maximum heights had clustered patterns, whereas taller species exhibited random patterns. In addition, species with heavier seeds and greater maximum heights had the largest cluster sizes.
Our results confirm that the spatial patterns of seedlings and adult plants are significantly determined by the functional strategy of each species.
Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.) Revealing patterns and connections in the historic landscape of the northern Apennines (Vetto, Italy), Journal of Maps, DOI: 10.1080/17445647.2022.2088305 Abstract In the Northern Apennines, significant modifications to the characteristic historic features of landscapes occurred since the 1950s as agriculture declined in importance and villages were progressively depopulated. Today European and national policies are promoting the repopulation of these regions in order to help preserve the cultural identity of territories and to reduce demographic pressure in urban areas. Such initiatives increase the need for cultural and natural landscape management to be better integrated using interdisciplinary approaches. Sustainable landscape management is a dynamic process involving the formulation of a set of strategies to underpin the preservation of landscape heritage and to foster local development on the basis of the values and opportunities provided by landscapes themselves. This study uses landscape archaeology and spatial statistics to provide insights into which parts of the historic landscape retain the greatest time-depth and which parts reflect more recent radical change, enabling an understanding which goes beyond the basic spatial relationships between landscape components. Methods This dataset was explored with two spatial statistical tools using the programming language R (R Core Team 2021): Local Indicators for Categorical Data (LICD) and Point Pattern analysis (PPA). The LICD method is based on join-count statistics (JCS), a solid method to measure the correlation between binomial variables and the distance between observations. LICD has been recently employed in landscape archaeological studies for verifying visible patterns and disclosing hidden spatial relationships (article: Carrer et al. 2021, Data: Zenodo Repository) The application of PPA in landscape studies has been widely applied in Ecology and it is growing popular also in Archaeology (Knitter and Nakoinz 2018; Brandolini and Carrer 2020; Costanzo et al. 2021). In this study, PPA was employed to provide a quantitative assessment of the correlations between different components of the Vetto landscape. List of files included in Brandolini_Turner_tjom_2022.zip: R_script_code named 'tjom_supplementary' in .rmd format Output folder: png and .txt products of the R script code GeoTiff folder (.TIFF file format): Geomorphons Euclidean distances from Irregular Fields (IF) Euclidean distances from Combined Fields (CF) EsriSHP folder (.shp file format): H_sites folder: historic settlements (h_sites.shp) rural_ruins folder: abandoned rural ruins (rural_ruins.shp) hlc folder: HLC_periods.shp HLC_types.shp roi folder: Region Of Interest (roi.shp) Contacts dr. F. Brandolini: filippo.brandolini@newcastle.ac.uk Acknowledgements The authors would like to acknowledge the help of the mayor Mr Fabio Ruffini and all the staff of Vetto d\u2019 Enza, Dr. Alessandra Curotti and Dr. Chiara Cantini and (Unione Montana dei Comuni dell\u2019Appennino Reggiano) and Dott.ssa Annalisa Capurso (Soprintendenza Archeologia Belle Arti e Paesaggio per la citt\u00e0 metropolitana di Bologna e le province di Modena, Reggio Emilia e Ferrara) for their administrative assistance in preparation of the project fieldwork activities. Also, we wish to thank Dr Anna Campeol and Mr Davide Cavecchi (Provincia di Reggio Emilia - Ufficio Topografico) for their help in retrieving and digitising the Nuovo Catasto Terreni cadastral map. The authors also thank the AsRe (Archivio Stato di Reggio Emilia) and AsPr (Archivio Stato di Parma) administration and staff for giving the right to digitise the historical maps and for helping during the consultation at the archives. Finally, we thank Francesco Carrer (Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK) for his comments on the R script code, and Christopher Sevara (Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK) for his suggestions in retrieving historical satellite images.", "keywords": ["Landscape Heritage", "Landscape Management", "Landscape Archaeology", "Spatial Statistics", "11. Sustainability", "Spatial Humanities", "Digital Geoarchaeology", "15. Life on land", "Historic Landscape Characterisation", "Point Pattern Analysis", "Local Indicator for Categorical Data"], "contacts": [{"organization": "Brandolini, Filippo", "roles": ["creator"]}]}, "links": [{"href": "https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5907228"}, {"rel": "self", "type": "application/geo+json", "title": "10.5281/zenodo.5907228", "name": "item", "description": "10.5281/zenodo.5907228", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/10.5281/zenodo.5907228"}, {"rel": "collection", "type": "application/json", "title": "Collection", "name": "collection", "description": "Collection", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main"}], "time": {"date": "2022-01-26T00:00:00Z"}}, {"id": "10.6084/m9.figshare.20477290", "type": "Feature", "geometry": null, "properties": {"updated": "2026-08-25T16:21:45Z", "type": "Journal Article", "created": "2022-08-11", "title": "Revealing patterns and connections in the historic landscape of the northern Apennines (Vetto, Italy)", "description": "In the Northern Apennines, significant modifications to the characteristic historical features of landscapes have occurred since the 1950s as agriculture declined in importance and villages were progressively depopulated. Today, European policies are promoting the repopulation of these regions to help preserve the cultural identity of territories and reduce demographic pressure inurban areas. Such initiatives increase the need for cultural and natural landscape management to be better integrated using interdisciplinary approaches. Sustainable landscape management is a dynamic process involving the formulation of strategies to underpin the preservation of landscape heritage and foster local development based on the values and opportunities provided by landscapes themselves. This study uses landscape archaeology and spatial statistics to provide insights into which parts of the historic landscape retain the greatest time-depth and which parts reflect the more recent radical change, enabling an understanding which goes beyond the basic spatial relationships between landscape components.", "keywords": ["local indicators for categorical data", "point pattern analysis", "G3180-9980", "Landscape archaeology", "Maps", "11. Sustainability", "landscape management", "15. Life on land", "01 natural sciences", "historic landscape characterisation", "spatial statistics", "0105 earth and related environmental sciences"]}, "links": [{"href": "https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/17445647.2022.2088305"}, {"href": "https://eprints.ncl.ac.uk/fulltext.aspx?url=284595/39618FDF-222E-4078-8426-E55819A569AD.pdf&pub_id=284595"}, {"href": "https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.20477290"}, {"rel": "related", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/Journal%20of%20Maps", "name": "related record", "description": "related record", "type": "application/json"}, {"rel": "self", "type": "application/geo+json", "title": "10.6084/m9.figshare.20477290", "name": "item", "description": "10.6084/m9.figshare.20477290", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/10.6084/m9.figshare.20477290"}, {"rel": "collection", "type": "application/json", "title": "Collection", "name": "collection", "description": "Collection", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main"}], "time": {"date": "2022-01-01T00:00:00Z"}}, {"id": "10115/24585", "type": "Feature", "geometry": null, "properties": {"license": "Open Access", "updated": "2026-08-25T16:21:57Z", "type": "Journal Article", "created": "2023-02-21", "title": "Functional traits explain both seedling and adult plant spatial patterns in gypsum annual species", "description": "Abstract
Ecological processes such as seed dispersal or plant\uffe2\uff80\uff93plant interactions and environmental constraints such as climate or soil heterogeneity are known to influence establishment, and thus the spatial patterns of plant communities and populations. In this study, we hypothesized that key functional traits such as the specific leaf area (SLA), reproductive ratio (reproductive/vegetative biomass), seed mass and maximum plant height would influence the spatial patterns of individual species in annual, gypsophilous plant communities, and that these effects would be modulated by both the soil surface structure (biocrust) and climate (precipitation) conditions.
We mapped the spatial patterns of all plants found in six 1\uffe2\uff80\uff89\uffc3\uff97\uffe2\uff80\uff891\uffc2\uffa0m plots (more than 1000 individuals per plot) in both the seedling (autumn) and adult stages (spring) under two biocrust experimental conditions (intact vs. disturbed biocrust) during two consecutive years which were contrasted in term of precipitation (dry year and wet year). To assess the spatial patterns of seedlings and adults, we fitted four different spatial point pattern models (i.e. Poisson, inhomogeneous Poisson, Poisson cluster and inhomogeneous Poisson cluster processes) to each of the 242 populations of the 26 most abundant species that had more than 15 individuals per plot.
Most seedling populations exhibited clustered spatial patterns that persisted in the adult stage, which suggests that short\uffe2\uff80\uff90distance dispersal is an adaptive trait for soil specialists such as gypsophilous plants. One\uffe2\uff80\uff90third of the populations fitted an inhomogeneous model best but the physical structure of the biocrust was not related to them. More importantly, we found a connection between the functional strategies of species and the spatial distribution of plants. In particular, during the dry year, irrespective of the biocrust conditions, species with a high SLA and high Rep/Veg mainly exhibited clustered spatial patterns, whereas low SLA and low Rep/Veg were associated with random distributions. Species with heavy and light seed masses had random and clustered patterns, respectively. In both the dry and wet years, species with lower maximum heights had clustered patterns, whereas taller species exhibited random patterns. In addition, species with heavier seeds and greater maximum heights had the largest cluster sizes.
Our results confirm that the spatial patterns of seedlings and adult plants are significantly determined by the functional strategy of each species.
Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.