Master Thesis

Der Einfluss von Dürre auf die Beta-Diversität der Quellflurvegetation von silikatischen Waldquellen im Fichtelgebirge und Frankenwald

Johannes Höger (11/2021-05/2022)

Support: Carl Beierkuhnlein

Stenotic spring species of forest springs can be used as bioindicators to describe the ecological condition of the forest watershed. If the spring vegetation shifts, changes in the forest watershed can be expected. Regarding the increase of drought events due to climate change, this work investigated the influence of drought on the beta diversity of forest spring flats in the Frankenwald and Fichtelgebirge from 1989 to 2020. For this purpose, beta-diversity indices were correlated with the change in spring discharge. It was found that drought particularly influences species composition and species richness in the moss layer. For the herb layer, only changes in species composition are observed. With respect to the tree layer, no clear relationship could be determined. Due to drought, the vegetation records become more dissimilar. It is suspected that, especially in the moss layer, wet and moist pointers will be displaced by fresh and dry pointers in the future, if the sources dry up more regularly due to the higher number of drought events.