Two sides of one medal: arable weed vegetation of Europe in phytosociological data compared to agronomical weed surveys

A - Papers appearing in refereed journals

Burger, J., Kuzmic, F., Silc, U., Jansen, F., Metcalfe, H., Redwitz, C., Cirujeda, A., Fogliatto, S., Fried, G., Dostatny, D. F., Gerowitt, B., Glemnitz, M., Gonzalez-Andujar, J. L., Plaza, E. H., Izquierdo, J., Kolarova, M., Necajeva, J., Petit, S., Pinke, G., Schumacher, M., Ulber, L. and Vidotto, F. 2022. Two sides of one medal: arable weed vegetation of Europe in phytosociological data compared to agronomical weed surveys. Applied Vegetation Science. 25 (1), p. e12460. https://doi.org/10.1111/avsc.12460

AuthorsBurger, J., Kuzmic, F., Silc, U., Jansen, F., Metcalfe, H., Redwitz, C., Cirujeda, A., Fogliatto, S., Fried, G., Dostatny, D. F., Gerowitt, B., Glemnitz, M., Gonzalez-Andujar, J. L., Plaza, E. H., Izquierdo, J., Kolarova, M., Necajeva, J., Petit, S., Pinke, G., Schumacher, M., Ulber, L. and Vidotto, F.
Abstract

Questions
Two scientific disciplines, vegetation science and weed science, study arable weed vegetation, which has seen a strong diversity decrease in Europe over the last decades. We compared two collections of plot-based vegetation records originating from these two disciplines. The aim was to check the suitability of the collections for joint analysis and for addressing research questions from the opposing domains. We asked: are these collections complementary? If so, how can they be used for joint analysis?

Location
Europe.

Methods
We compared 13 311 phytosociological relevés and 13 328 records from weed science, concerning both data collection properties and the recorded species richness. To deal with bias in the data, we also analysed different subsets (i.e., crops, geographical regions, organic vs conventional fields, center vs edge plots).

Results
Records from vegetation science have an average species number of 19.0 ± 10.4. Metadata on survey methodology or agronomic practices are rare in this collection. Records from weed science have an average species number of 8.5 ± 6.4. They are accompanied by extensive methodological information. Vegetation science records and the weed science records taken at field edges or from organic fields have similar species numbers. The collections cover different parts of Europe but the results are consistent in six geographical subsets and the overall data set. The difference in species numbers may be caused by differences in methodology between the disciplines, i.e., plot positioning within fields, plot sizes, or survey timing.

Conclusion
This comparison of arable weed data that were originally sampled with a different purpose represents a new effort in connecting research between vegetation scientists and weed scientists. Both collections show different aspects of weed vegetation, which means the joint use of the data is valuable as it can contribute to a more complete picture of weed species diversity in European arable landscapes.

KeywordsData collection; Agriculture; Arable weeds; Arable weeds and management in europe; European Weed Vegetation database; Phytosociology; Segetal plants; Species richness; Species richness,; Weed Survey; Vegetation-plot data
Year of Publication2022
JournalApplied Vegetation Science
Journal citation25 (1), p. e12460
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.1111/avsc.12460
Web address (URL)https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/avsc.12460
Open accessPublished as ‘gold’ (paid) open access
FunderBiotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council
Publisher's version
Output statusPublished
Publication dates
Online29 Mar 2022
Publication process dates
Accepted04 Jan 2022
PublisherWiley
ISSN1402-2001

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