Table_2_Ancient Burial Mounds Provide Safe Havens for Grassland Specialist Plants in Transformed Landscapes—A Trait-Based Analysis.docx

Due to the intensified land use in transformed landscapes, grassland biodiversity is often restricted to habitat fragments inadequate for arable use or for urban development. In continental parts of Eurasia, the ~600,000 ancient burial mounds (called “kurgans”) built by nomadic tribes of the steppes are amongst the most widespread landmarks providing refuge for dry grassland species. In our study by using plant functional groups and functional traits, we aimed at gaining insight into the ecological and evolutionary processes shaping the structure and the composition of assemblages of grassland specialist plant species on kurgans embedded in the agricultural landscapes of East-Hungary. As a comparison, we also studied roadside verges and pristine extensive grasslands in the same region. We found that despite their small size, due to the lack of human disturbances and high microhabitat diversity kurgans can maintain a high species richness and percentage cover of specialists, especially when compared to verges. We revealed that assemblages of specialist plants on kurgans are characterized by traits typical to terrestrial habitat islands such as self-compatibility, large seed mass and tall stature. Kurgans and extensive grasslands were characterized by higher functional diversity (both at the level of single traits and multi-trait based functional dispersion) which is probably due to the higher level of environmental heterogeneity compared to the homogeneous environment in verges.

受转型景观内土地利用强度加剧的影响，草原生物多样性往往仅能存续于不适宜农业开垦或城市开发的生境碎片之中。在欧亚大陆内陆区域，由草原游牧部族营建的约60万座古代墓葬冢（kurgan），是为干旱草原物种提供庇护的最具普遍性的地标之一。本研究借助植物功能群与功能性状分析，旨在揭示匈牙利东部农业景观中嵌入的墓葬冢上，草原专性植物类群的群落结构与组成所受的生态与进化塑造机制。作为对照，本研究同时对同一区域的道路边坡与原生粗放草原开展了调查。研究结果表明，尽管墓葬冢单体面积较小，但因未受人类干扰且微生境多样性丰富，其可维持较高的专性植物物种丰富度与盖度，相较道路边坡尤为突出。本研究发现，墓葬冢上的专性植物群落具备陆地生境岛典型的功能性状特征，如自交亲和性、大种子质量与较高植株株高。墓葬冢与原生粗放草原的功能多样性（涵盖单性状功能多样性与基于多性状的功能离散度）均高于道路边坡，这一差异或源于前者具有更高的环境异质性，而后者环境较为均质。