The effects of habitat connectivity on cryptogam richness in boulder metacommunity Original Research Article

We investigated the effects of habitat patch size and connectivity on cryptogam richness on 288 calcareous boulders. The studied boulders were found to be a particularly suitable ‘metacommunity model system’ and allowed comparison of species richness among cryptogams with differing substrate specificity, life history and red list status. The dependence of species richness on boulder surface area was modelled using Arrhenius power model, and contrasts were analysed between connected and isolated boulders. Species richness was clearly related to boulder size, but the rates of increase of species richness with increasing boulder area (z-values) were highly variable among species groups. Highest value of z (1.17) was found for species with large propagules, and values around 0.5 were obtained for calciphilous and regionally red-listed species and z = 0.42 for perennials. The lowest value of z (0.27) occurred in calcicolous species while for all species, colonists, and species with small propagules the values were 0.3–0.4. The richness of all species was 11% higher on connected than isolated boulders, while connected boulders had 31% more of both calcicolous and regionally red-listed species and 19% more of colonists. The result suggests that in the investigated system that boulder size is a crucial determinant of cryptogam richness, and their spatial configuration in terms of connectivity may further contribute to cryptogam richness. The latter result lends support to the importance of metacommunity processes for the maintenance of cryptogam richness.