Environmental correlates of meso-scale plant species richness in the province of Harjedalen, Sweden

We investigated the species richness of vascular plants at the scale of 5 3 5 km in the Swedish province of Harjedalen, and the relationship between richness and environment. Environmental variables included geographical, altitudinal, topographical, bedrock, soil type, and land-cover descriptors. The species richness was subdivided into groups of species with similar life-form, i.e. trees, dwarf shrubs, hydro- and helophytes, vascular cryptogams, forbs, graminoids, and mountain plants. The data were split at random into two equal subsets. Explanatory models were built by multiple linear regression on the first subset, and the models were validated on the second subset. The total species richness of vascular plants could be explained by sandy and clayey soil, the heterogeneity in bedrock types and the area of acid volcanic bedrock. The model could explain about 46% of the variation in species richness. The richness of trees and hydrophytes tended to decrease with altitude, whereas this was not the case for mountain plants. The latter group occurred frequently at low elevation, but then predominantly along streams and rivers. Clayey soils, sandy soils, and basic volcanic bedrock were the variables most frequently included in the regression models.