Florian A. Werner

Effects of Human Disturbance on Tropical Montane Epiphyte Assemblages

Studies from the Ecuadorian Andes

• Broschiertes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

The present dissertation aims at contributing to our understanding of the processes that determine epiphyte diversity in anthropogenic landscapes. At a dry forest site, epiphytic bryophytes responded sensitively to human disturbance, but vascular epiphytes did not. At a moist forest site, vascular epiphyte assemblages on isolated remnant trees were impoverished markedly and strongly biased to xerotolerant taxa. Field-experimental work at this site could show that this was related to 1) strongly increased mortality of established plants on isolated remnant trees following their isolation in clear-cuts, and 2) reduced and compositionally biased establishment on isolated trees. Evidence is presented to suggest that growth conditions (especially microclimate) are a more decisive predictor of epiphyte communities in disturbed habitats at these sites than dispersal constraints. The response of epiphyte communities to disturbance may further vary with mesoclimate.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Südwestdeutscher Verlag für Hochschulschriften
• Seitenzahl: 164
• Erscheinungstermin: 17. April 2010
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 220mm x 150mm x 10mm
• Gewicht: 230g
• ISBN-13: 9783838116464
• ISBN-10: 3838116461
• Artikelnr.: 29611541

Autorenporträt

Florian Werner grew up near Stuttgart, Germany, and studiedbiology at the universities of Tübingen and Bonn. He graduatedwith a Dr. rer. nat. in Biological Diversity and Ecology at theUniversity of Göttingen and is currently doing a post-doc at theUniversity of Oldenburg.