Effect of ground water regime on development and distribution of Fritillaria meleagris

This paper deals with a change in abundance of a population of Fritillaria meleagris L. The results of the investigation were compared with those of a study performed about 40 yr ago. The comparison showed both a change in the vegetation and in the abundance of the fritillary along a topographical gradient. The study reported here was a transplant experiment carried out in order to evaluate the hypothesis that regulation of the water levels of an adjacent lake was the main reason for the change. The transplantations showed that the performance of the fritillary was negatively affected by the high ground water levels and inundations of the site where the fritillary earlier was most abundant.