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opencc-zeroJan 2024View details →

Effect of green infrastructure on restoration of pollination networks and plant performance in semi-natural dry grasslands across Europe

Agricultural intensification, afforestation and land abandonment are major drivers of biodiversity loss in semi-natural grasslands across Europe. Reversing these losses requires the reinstatement of plant-animal interactions such as pollination. Here we assessed the differences in species composition and patterns of plant-pollinator interactions in ancient and restored grasslands and how these patterns are influenced by landscape connectivity, across three European regions (Belgium, Germany and Sweden). We evaluated the differences in pollinator community assemblage, abundance, and interaction network structure between 24 ancient and restored grasslands. We then assessed the effect of surrounding landscape functional connectivity (i.e. green infrastructure, GI) on these variables and tested possible consequences on the reproduction of two model plants, Lotus corniculatus and Salvia pratensis. Neither pollinator richness nor species composition differed between ancient and restored grasslands. A high turnover of interactions across grasslands was detected but was mainly due to replacement of pollinator and plant species. The impact of grassland restoration was consistent across various pollinator functional groups, whereas the surrounding GI had differential effects. Notably, bees, butterflies, beetles, and dipterans (excluding hoverflies) exhibited the most significant responses to GI variations. Interestingly, networks in restored grasslands were more specialised (i.e. less functionally redundant) than in ancient ones and also showed a higher number of insect visits to habitat-generalist plant species. Landscape connectivity had a similar effect, with habitat-specialist plant species receiving fewer visits at higher GI values. Fruit set in S. pratensis and L. corniculatus was unaffected by grassland type or GI. However, the fruit set in the specialist S. pratensis increased with the number of pollinator visits, indicating a positive correlation between pollinator activity and reproductive success in this particular species. Synthesis and applications. Our findings provide evidence of the necessity to enhance ecosystem functions while avoiding biotic homogenization. Restoration programs should aim at increasing landscape connectivity which influences plant communities, pollinator assemblages, and their interaction patterns. To avoid generalist species taking over from specialists in restored grasslands, we suggest reinforcing the presence of specialist species in the latter, for instance by means of introductions, as well as increasing the connectivity to source populations.

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Fig. 2 in Terrestrial Molluscs In The Dry Grasslands Of The Dnipro Upland (Central Ukraine): New Records, Rare Species And Conservation Potential

Fig. 2. Shells of Granaria frumentum from the vicinities of Korsun-Shevchenkivskyi town.

opencc-by-4.0Jan 2018View details →

opencc-zeroJun 2023View details →

Large-scale restoration of species-rich dry grasslands on arable land: Environmental filtering drives successful species establishment over a period of 10 years

Sowing of regionally specific seed mixtures on former arable land is increasingly used to restore species-rich grasslands, but it often faces important obstacles in environmental conditions and colonisation from preserved surrounding grasslands. Long-term landscape scale studies, which explore the processes governing plant establishment from seed mixtures and later colonisation from the surrounding landscape are scarce. We studied the species and functional trait composition of 32 grasslands restored 1–11 years before the first sampling by sowing regional seed mixtures in the White Carpathian Mts (SE Czech Republic). We compared them with 23 well-preserved permanent grasslands in their surroundings. In each grassland we estimated plant species cover in three plots of 25 m2, in restored grasslands in 2009, 2014 and 2019, in permanent grasslands in 2009. The species composition of the restored grasslands converged towards the permanent grasslands due to expansion of dry grassland species and retreat of mesic grassland and weed species. The majority (60–71%) of the vegetation cover of restored grasslands was formed by sown species, while the species number was mainly determined by colonising unsown species (61–63%). The species number of restored grasslands remained lower than that in permanent grasslands. Functional trait composition (Community Weighted Mean) of the sown seed mixtures, permanent grasslands and restored grasslands overlapped in all three samplings. With increasing grassland age, species with resource-retaining traits of low specific leaf area and high leaf dry matter content, lower stature, higher seed mass, and lower capacity for clonal reproduction expanded. Functional trait diversity of the plots was mostly lower than expected by null model randomisations of community, which indicates strong environmental filtering. Comparison of newly colonising species and extinct species indicated that mainly species with traits similar to the rest of the community are able to colonise the grasslands successfully. Synthesis and applications. Sowing of regionally specific seed mixtures was successful and demonstrated to be a fast way of grassland restoration, particularly in terms of functional trait composition. The resulting species diversity depended on the colonisation processes, which are controlled by the functional composition of the local communities.

publicJun 2023View details →

Large-scale restoration of species-rich dry grasslands on arable land: Environmental filtering drives successful species establishment over a period of 10 years

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publicJan 2024View details →

Effect of green infrastructure on restoration of pollination networks and plant performance in semi-natural dry grasslands across Europe

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opencc-zeroDec 2018View details →

Data from: Wild boar (Sus scrofa) increases species diversity of semi-dry grassland: field experiment with simulated soil disturbances

Background Foraging activities of wild boar (Sus scrofa) create small-scale soil disturbances in many different vegetation types. Rooting alters species composition by opening niches for less-competitive plants and as a recurrent factor becomes a part of the community disturbance regime. Vegetation responses to wild boar disturbance have mostly been studied in the boar's non-native range or in native forest, rather than in open habitats in the native range. We investigate the response of open European semi-dry grassland vegetation dominated by (Brachypodium pinnatum) to native wild boar pressure in an abandoned agricultural landscape. Methods To describe the disturbance regime, we repeatedly mapped rooted patches during a 5-year period. Additionally, to study the vegetation response, we performed an artificial disturbance experiment by creating 30 pairs of simulated disturbances and undisturbed plots. The vegetation composition of the paired plots was repeatedly sampled five times in eight years of the study. Results Based on repeated mapping of disturbances, we predict that if the disturbance regime we observed during the 5-year period were maintained over the long term, it would yield a stable vegetation ratio consisting of 98.7 % of the grassland undisturbed, 0.4 % with fresh disturbance and 0.9 % in older successional stages. Vegetation composition on the artificially disturbed plots was continuously converging to that of undisturbed vegetation, but these disturbed plots still differed significantly in composition and had higher species number, even after eight years of succession. Synthesis Our results thus show that wild boar disturbance regime in its native range increases heterogeneity and species diversity of semi-dry grassland vegetation.

opencc-zeroDec 2016View details →

Data from: Feces nitrogen release induced by different large herbivores in a dry grassland

Large herbivores have pronounced effects on nutrient cycling in grasslands. These organisms are known to alter the quality and quantity of plant production as well as the amounts and quality of plant litter and animal wastes. The generalization that the relative quality of detritus inputs is enhanced by herbivores is well known, but how this process is affected by diet selection processing and feces production of different large herbivores remains largely unstudied. Here, we measured how these differences for cattle and sheep on a dry grassland might influence nitrogen (N) mineralization from feces. We found that cattle of larger body size tended to select low quality grass Stipa grandis as the major food source. In contrast, the subdominant grass Leymus chinensis with relatively high N content was a majority in the diet of smaller sheep, when palatable forbs were insufficient in the field. This diverse diet quality resulted in a C/N ratio of cattle feces that was higher than that of sheep feces. Relatively higher labile C availability in the cattle feces, namely relatively higher cellulose/hemicellulose contents, promoted microbial growth and in turn accelerated cattle feces decomposition. A surprise finding was that the feces from cattle mineralized about twice as much N as feces from sheep, despite the latter having slightly higher N content. From a grassland productivity perspective, increasing the proportion of large body-sized species in grazing herbivore assemblages perhaps is beneficial to forage productivity and nutrient recycling by the rapid degradation of feces.

opencc-zeroMar 2022View details →

Community leaf dry matter content predicts grassland production

Plant growth correlates with values of collinear (covarying) traits from the leaf economics spectrum. Environmental variation and differences in community composition may alter contributions of these traits to plant production and thereby limit the consistency of trait-based growth predictions among years and plant communities. We tested effects of interannual variation in precipitation and differences in grassland community composition (planted monoculture of switchgrass, Panicum virgatum, and mixture of perennial herbaceous species) on the utility of two traits from the leaf economics spectrum (leaf dry matter content [LDMC] and plant [N]) to predict aboveground net primary production (ANP) during spring of 6 years. Spatial and temporal variation in spring production correlated with community-scale (species-abundance weighted) values of both traits, but community LDMC explained 66% of the variance in production and accounted for ≥89% of the variance in ANP explained by the two traits combined. The ANP response to trait variation and the variance in ANP explained by trait values differed with precipitation and between communities. Greater precipitation increased the production response to trait variation by increasing slopes of ANP-trait regression relationships and increased the variance in ANP explained by trait values. Communities differed in response to precipitation variation and in the role of annual variation in the [N]-LDMC relationship in explaining variance in ANP. Results indicate that mean trends in grassland production can be predicted using community-scale values of LDMC. Trait-based predictions of grassland production could be improved, however, by accommodating precipitation and community effects on production-trait relationships.

Fig. 6 in Extremely Endangered Butterflies of Scattered Central European Dry Grasslands Under Current Habitat Alteration

Fig. 6. Species Distribution Models (MaxEnt) for three steppe butterflies, (a) C. briseis, (b) P. damon, (c) P. dorylas. Diagrams show BIOCLIM variables selected by jackknife procedure and their contribution to the model (explained variation) (x-axes: the value of the variable, y-axes: predicted values).The climatic niche is modelled for the last interglacial period (–130 ky), the glacial maximum (–21 ky), Younger Dryas (–12 ky), mid Holocene (–6 ky), current situation, and the future (2050) with an RCP4.5 climate change scenario. Purple colors show the suitability, including the least suitable training record (minimum training presence threshold), and orange colors the suitability of 90% of the training data (tenth percentile training presence threshold).The glacial sheet was adopted after Ehlers et al. (2011).

Fig. 3. Phylogeographic analyses for the butterfly P in Extremely Endangered Butterflies of Scattered Central European Dry Grasslands Under Current Habitat Alteration

Fig. 3. Phylogeographic analyses for the butterfly P. damon: (a) distribution range (shaded) with locations of samples colored and symbolized by COI BAPS groups, (b) TCS haplotype network, (c) Maximum Likelihood tree (COI + wingless). Branch labels show bootstrap values higher than 50%. Sequences in the network and the tree were assigned to geographical or political regions (described by the legend). Question marks on the map stand for uncertainty in the species distribution and EX. for extinct populations.

Fig. 2. Phylogeographic analyses for the butterfly C in Extremely Endangered Butterflies of Scattered Central European Dry Grasslands Under Current Habitat Alteration

Fig. 2. Phylogeographic analyses for the butterfly C. briseis: (a) distribution range (shaded) with locations of samples colored and symbolized by COI BAPS groups, (b) TCS haplotype network, (c) Maximum Likelihood tree (COI + wingless). Branch labels show bootstrap values higher than 50%. Sequences in the network and the tree were assigned to geographic or political regions (described by the legend).

Fig. 5 in Extremely Endangered Butterflies of Scattered Central European Dry Grasslands Under Current Habitat Alteration

Fig. 5. Genetic landscapes for three steppe butterflies, (a) C. briseis, (b) P. damon, (c) P. dorylas, based on residual COI genetic distances. Warmer colors show higher genetic distances among neighboring populations (barriers).

Fig. 1 in Extremely Endangered Butterflies of Scattered Central European Dry Grasslands Under Current Habitat Alteration

Fig. 1. Localities of the study species in Central Europe (AT, CZ, four federal states of DE, HU, SK), distinguishing recently occupied (color), recently (i.e., post- 2010) extinct (white), recently not inventoried (light gray), and (re)introduced (including failed attempts, dark gray) populations of C. briseis (circles), P. damon (triangles), and P. dorylas (stars). See text for comments on their much denser distribution in the region just a few decades ago. Species P. damon and P. dorylas are present also in the Austrian Alps (not displayed on the map), and a few more (sub)recent populations of the two species are expected in lowland eastern AT.

Fig. 4. Phylogeographic analyses for the butterfly P in Extremely Endangered Butterflies of Scattered Central European Dry Grasslands Under Current Habitat Alteration

Fig. 4. Phylogeographic analyses for the butterfly P. dorylas: (a) distribution range (shaded) with locations of samples colored and symbolized by COI BAPS groups, (b) TCS haplotype network, (c) Maximum Likelihood tree (COI + wingless). Branch labels show bootstrap values higher than 50%. Sequences in the network and the tree were assigned to geographical or political regions (described by the legend). Question marks on the map stand for uncertainty in the species distribution and EX. for extinct populations.

opencc-zeroJan 2023View details →

Vegetation resistance and resilience to a decade-long dry period in the temperate grasslands in China

The duration of climate anomalies has been increasing across the globe, leading to ecosystem function loss. Thus, we need to understand the responses of the ecosystem to long-term climate anomalies. It remains unclear how ecosystem resistance and resilience respond to long-term climate anomalies, e.g., continuous dry years at a regional scale. Taking the opportunity of a 13-year dry period in the temperate grasslands in northern China, we quantified the resistance and resilience of the grassland in response to this periodic dry period. We found vegetation resistance to the dry period increased with mean annual precipitation (MAP), while resilience increased at first until at MAP of 250 mm and then decreased slightly. No trade-off between resistance and resilience was detected when MAP < 250 mm. Our results highlight that xeric ecosystems are most vulnerable to the long-term dry period. Given expected increases in drought severity and duration in the coming decades, our findings may be helpful to identify vulnerable ecosystems in the world for the purpose of adaptation.

publicFeb 2019View details →

Data from: Wild boar (Sus scrofa) increases species diversity of semi-dry grassland: field experiment with simulated soil disturbances

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