Field margins plant assemblages: variation partitioning between local and landscape factors

It is hypothesized that plant diversity in field margins can be influenced by field margin structure and management, factors related to adjacent land use and factors related to landscape structure. To test this hypothesis, the plant species composition of field margins in three hedgerow network landscapes differing in grain size, hedgerow connectivity and land use patterns were compared. Variation partitioning by partial canonical correspondence analysis was used to assess the relative weight of local and landscape factors in total variation explained. Results showed that the three sets of local factors and the landscape factor were all significant. We conclude that the plant species composition of field margins is determined by landscape scale variation in environment attributes, and discuss implications for conservation.