DOI: 10.5061/dryad.rh4qm
title: Data from: The abundance and distribution of guilds of riparian woody plants change in response to land use and flow regulation

description: 1. Many riparian ecosystems in Mediterranean Europe are affected by land
 use and flow alteration by dams. We focused on understanding how these
 stressors and their components affect riparian forests in the region. We
 asked: (i) are there well-defined, responsive riparian guilds?; (ii) do
 dam-induced stream flows determine abundance and distribution of riparian
 guilds? and (iii) what are the main drivers governing composition and
 cover of riparian guilds in regulated rivers? 2. We inventoried the cover
 of riparian woody species in free-flowing rivers and downstream of dams.
 We performed a cluster analysis and ordination to derive riparian guilds,
 using abundance data from 66 riparian woody species and 26 functional
 plant traits. We used a reduced set of principal components for the
 environment, land use and hydrology, and general linear modelling to
 explore the effect of these factors (separately and combined) on riparian
 guilds. 3. We found that: (i) four dominant guilds are responsive to
 disturbance in Southwestern European streams, namely the obligate
 riparian, water-stress tolerant, deciduous competitive, and Mediterranean
 evergreen guilds ; (ii) a set of land use and hydrological variables
 differentially affect the diverse co-occurring riparian guilds; (iii)
 frequency and duration of high flow pulses and the low-flow conditions
 were major drivers of change in landscapes dominated by intensive
 agriculture and forestry; (iv) storage reservoirs reduced the cover of
 obligate riparian and Mediterranean evergreen guilds, and increased the
 abundance of water-stress tolerant and deciduous competitive guilds, while
 run-of-river dams, having limited water storage, reduced both obligate and
 deciduous competitive guilds. 4. Synthesis and applications. Future
 research, especially in Southwestern Europe, should address the resilience
 of riparian guilds and the effects of interacting landscape factors and
 stressors on guild distribution. Stream flow regulations downstream of
 reservoirs should focus on specific flow components, namely the magnitude
 of flows, and frequency and duration of extreme flow events. For
 successful mitigation of the dam-induced effects on riparian vegetation,
 river management plans must incorporate the environmental and land use
 site-specific contexts.
description: Acronyms of Functional
 Plant TraitsThe file
 "Acronyms_Functional_Traits.csv" contain the acronyms of
 functional plant traits, the full name of functional plant traits, and a
 description. This document supports the data file
 “66_Species_vs_26_Plant_Functional_Traits.csv”.Acronyms_Functional_Traits.csvAcronyms of riparian species and riparian guildsThe file "Acronyms_Species_Guilds.csv" contain the acronyms (Acronyms) of all the species used in the study, the scientific name and classifier (Species), the Family and the Guilds assignment to all species used in the study.Acronyms_Species_Guilds.csv66 Riparian species and 26 Functional Plant TraitsThe data file “66_Species_vs_26_Plant_Functional_Traits.csv” contains the scientific names of the 66 species used in the study and respective values for the 26 functional plant traits considered.66_Species_vs_26_Plant_Functional_Traits.csvSampling sites vs variables vs guildsThe file “Sites_vs_Environment_Hydrology_Land_Use_Guilds.csv” contains data on sampling sites and case studies, variables, and abundance of dominant riparian guilds.Sites_vs_Environment_Hydrology_Land_Use_Guilds.csv