Integration of European habitat monitoring based on plant life form composition as an indicator of environmental change and change in biodiversity

During the last 25 years a number of European countries have developed
general landscape monitoring systems. In the agricultural
landscapes of Denmark the Small Biotope Monitoring Program
(SBMP), which focuses on the dynamics of small biotopes and their
relation to changes in agricultural technology and structural characteristics,
has been developed since 1981. From 2007, the SBMP
will continue as part of the Danish nature monitoring program, NOVANA.
In Europe, during the last 10 years, several national landscape
surveys have cooperated to develop a European platform for consistent
landscape related habitat monitoring. This has been through
the BioHab Concerted Action Framework Programme of the EU
(2002-2005), and the resulting publication of a handbook for
recording and monitoring habitats (Bunce et al., 2005). The focus
on environmentally conditioned habitat changes at a landscape
level has led to the re-introduction of Raunkiaer’s plant life form
concept. This approach enables the indication of changes in biodiversity
based on alterations in general habitat composition and
quality.
Although the objectives of the SBMP and the BioHab projects have
been somewhat different, the methodologies have much in common.
In this paper the background and perspectives of the two approaches
are discussed, and a test of the BioHab field methodology
in an area previously monitored by the SBMP is presented. It was
found not to be difficult to integrate the BioHab field recording
methodology with the existing SBMP methods, thus permitting the
SBMP to deliver an additional European perspective, with relatively
little additional effort.