The impact of livestock grazing and canopy gaps on species pool and functional diversity of ground flora in the Caspian beech forests of Iran

Questions Livestock grazing is an important disturbance in many forest ecosystems. While several studies have addressed the general impact of different and light intensities on temperate ecosystems, little known about how combination these two factors can affect species pool functional diversity forests. Location Oriental beech forests northern Iran. Methods Vegetation environmental data 104 relevés were collected. These assigned to four groups based their intensities. Non-metric multidimensional scaling was used analyze vegetation compositional relationships among groups. We nine traits related growth, reproduction, survival for a total 147 plant species. Redundancy analysis community-weighted means determine response single variables. Generalized additive models applied examine shape pattern mean trait values across intensity gradients. Functional richness divergence indices diversity–disturbance relationships. Results Both significantly affected pools, traits, divergence. Suites attributes including hemicryptophytes, therophytes, grass-like, hygromorphic leaves, insect-pollinated, rhizomes, runner plants associated with high-light sites. In closed-canopy sites strong filtering effect shade resulted suites taller plants, macrophanerophytes, scleromorphic simple berry fruits. had larger pool, they exhibited less diversity. Cattle mediate increase both low-light Conclusion Conservation measures this region should acknowledge that moderate traditional cattle combined individual-tree group-tree selection may maintain or even enhance valuable