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. 2020 Oct 26;10(23):13236-13247.
doi: 10.1002/ece3.6920. eCollection 2020 Dec.

Roadsides provide refuge for orchids: characteristic of the surrounding landscape

Réka Fekete  1 , Judit Bódis  2 , Bence Fülöp  2   3 , Kristóf Süveges  1 , Renáta Urgyán  1   4 , Tamás Malkócs  1 , Orsolya Vincze  4   5 , Luís Silva  6   7 , Attila Molnár V  1
Affiliations

Roadsides provide refuge for orchids: characteristic of the surrounding landscape

Réka Fekete et al. Ecol Evol. .

Abstract

Seminatural habitats are declining throughout the world; thus, the role of small anthropogenic habitats in the preservation of plants is becoming increasingly appreciated. Here, we surveyed the orchid flora of roadside verges in five Central European countries (Austria, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia) and tested how the surrounding landscape matrix affects the overall number of species and individuals, and also different functional groups of orchids. We found more than 2,000 individuals of 27 orchid species during our surveys. According to our results, the increasing coverage of agricultural and urban areas negatively affects both the number of orchid species and individuals on roadsides. Our study further suggests that differences in the surrounding habitats affect which species are found on roadsides, since the increasing coverage of grasslands or forested areas around orchid occurrences had a significant positive effect on the number of grassland or forest-dwelling species and individuals, respectively. Most variance in orchid numerosity and diversity was explained by the cover of the suitable habitat types of the respective taxa in the surrounding landscape of the sampling points. This highlights the importance of roadsides acting as refugia for numerous species and valuable plant communities as well as in supporting biodiversity in general.

Keywords: Orchidaceae; anthropogenic habitats; ecological corridor; landscape matrix; linear landscape elements; roadside.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Distribution of thematic and non‐thematic sampling points in the surveyed countries. Gray triangles indicate non‐thematic sampling points; black dots indicate thematic sampling points with orchid presence, while white dots indicate the thematic sampling points with orchid absence
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
(a) Box plots showing the cover of urban areas within 1‐km‐radius circle and the logarithmized number of species in different coverage categories. (b) Box plots showing the cover of agricultural areas within 1‐km‐radius circle and the logarithmized number of species in different coverage categories
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
(a) Coverage of natural grassland and pasture within 1 km radius in the three orchid groups: species with broad ecological tolerance (BET), forest species (FS), and grassland species (GS). (b) Coverage of broad‐leaved forest within 1 km radius in the three groups: species with broad ecological tolerance (BET), forest species (FS), and grassland species (GS)
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