Ökológia (elméleti és kísérleti, populáció, faj és közösségek szinten)
Természetvédelem
As climate change is forcing plant species to migrate northward and upward, it is
important to know how species' vegetative traits and reproductive success vary along
different climatic conditions. We aimed to examine the impact of elevation on the
morphological and reproductive characteristics of Cephalanthera rubra in four different
altitudes in Hungary: in a lowland oak forest (103 m), and in the beech forests of
the Bükk-mountains (361 m, 533 m, 657 m). We counted the number of leaves, flowers,
and fruits, and measured the height of each plant with the length and width of all
leaves. Linear, negative binomial, and quasipoisson regressions were used to compare
the populations. Our study has shown that the lowland and mountain populations of
C. rubra are sharply different regarding their life history strategy and reproductive
success, and altitudinal effects can be found only in the mountain populations. The
number of flowers depends strongly on the vegetative production (height and leaf area)
of the plants, but at the same time, the area that facilitates greater vegetative
production-possibly because it also facilitates species with better competitiveness,
and it is less favorable to its mimicked partners-were less beneficial in terms of
fruit production.
