Millora 2.0 – Ett nytt projekt för övervakning av Flora och Miljö, samt svar på frågan hur extremsommaren 2018 påverkade den biologiska mångfalden i Skåne

A new project based on continuous bi-annual surveys of hectare plots is introduced with the aim to monitor future floristic changes as well as environmental conditions that may be assessed based on species-specific plant traits or ecological indicator values. As a trade-off between the needs for representativeness at the landscape scale and field work efficiency, the hectare plots have been placed 1 km apart in clusters of ten aligned to the road network, but with the clusters positioned considering major biogeographic divisions and gradients in the landscape. At present the project is restricted to 120 hectare plots in the province of Skåne, southern-most Sweden, but future expansions are suggested and discussed. Analyses of 50 plots surveyed in both 2018 and 2019, i.e. before and after the unprecedentedly hot and dry summer of 2018, show that plant species richness per hectare increased significantly by ca 17% from 2018 to 2019. Likewise, expected biodiversity of plant-associated organisms increased by ca 12 %. Furthermore, the analyses show that the vegetation changed significantly towards higher proportions of 1) drought-resistant species, 2) species favored by grazing or mowing, 3) short-lived species, 4) species not forming mycorrhiza, 5) species with a persistent seed-bank and, 6) rapid germination.