Fragmentation and plant dispersal capacity in Dutch wetlands.

Abstract

Wetlands fulfil important ecological functions as regulators of worldwide water regimes and carbon-, and oxygen cycles (Best et al., 1993) and there biodiversity is often large (Mitsch and Gosselink, 1993). In the Netherlands, plant diversity is especially large in the groundwater dependent, nutrient poor floating fens, belonging to the community of Caricion davallianae (Best et al., 1993). However, wetlands are declining rapidly worldwide (Finlayson and Moser, 1991), and only 80 hectare floating fen is left in the Netherlands (Beltman et al., 2001).