The biogeography of scarce vascular plants in Britain with respect to habitat preference, dispersal ability and reproductive biology

R.M. Quinn, J.H. Lawton, B.C. Eversham, S.N. Wood

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

We investigated the effect of five plant and habitat characteristics on the national distribution of scarce British plants defined as those occurring in 16–50 10 × 10 km squares (‘loci’). In all 139 species considered, loci were more aggregated than expected by chance. Habitat, dispersal ability and pollination type were significantly correlated with pattern of locus distribution. Seed size and life history were unrelated to the degree of aggregation of loci. The most important result from a conservation perspective is the tendency for plants with poor dispersal ability to have more aggregated distributions (i.e. they have loci closer together) than plants with good dispersal ability. One implication of this result may be that re-introduction or translocation could be useful techniques for supplementing natural dispersal in the management of such species.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)149-157
JournalBiological conservation
Volume70
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 31 Aug 1994

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