Does habitat fragmentation affect fitness and biotic interactions in the common plant Lychnis flos-cuculi?
GALEUCHET, DAVID*,1, PERRET, CATHERINE1, FISCHER, MARKUS1, 1 University of Zurich, Zurich, ZH, Switzerland ABSTRACT- After habitat fragmentation, negative effects of small size and high geographic isolation of populations on fitness and biotic interactions were documented for rare plant species, whereas effects on more common species are largely unknown. In the common Lychnis flos-cuculi we investigated plant fitness and levels of biotic interactions for 28 populations of different size (40-51’000 flowering individuals in 2000), isolation, and altitude (865-1350 m) in NE Switzerland. In July 2000, differentiation between the populations was highly significant for most fitness estimators (p <0.001). Reproductive fitness estimators decreased with increasing altitude of a population (p <0.05) and were generally independent of population size. Seed mass and the size measures number of rosette leaves and length of longest stem leaf were even negatively correlated with population size (p <0.
