TY - JOUR
T1 - Interacting effects of fertilization, mowing and grazing on plant species diversity of 1500 grasslands in Germany differ between regions
AU - Socher, Stephanie A.
AU - Prati, Daniel
AU - Boch, Steffen
AU - Müller, Jörg
AU - Baumbach, Henryk
AU - Gockel, Sonja
AU - Hemp, Andreas
AU - Schöning, Ingo
AU - Wells, Konstans
AU - Buscot, François
AU - Kalko, Elisabeth K.V.
AU - Linsenmair, Karl Eduard
AU - Schulze, Ernst Detlef
AU - Weisser, Wolfgang W.
AU - Fischer, Markus
N1 - Funding Information:
We dedicate this article to the memory of our friend, colleague and co-author Elisabeth K.V. Kalko, who very sadly passed away during the final stage of this work. We thank all local teams supporting us during the vegetation period, especially Metke Lilienthal, Ralf Lauterbach, Martin Fellendorf, Jörg Hailer, Uta Schumacher, Ulf Pommer, and Claudia Seilwinder. Further, we thank Jens Nieschulze for providing topographic data, Simone Pfeiffer and Ilka May for project infrastructure. We thank Prof Hövemeyer and three anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on the manuscript. We thank the DFG for funding in the framework of the DFG Priority Program 1374 “Infrastructure-Biodiversity-Exploratories” (FI1246/6-1, FI1246/9-1) and the University of Bern . Field work permits were given by the responsible state environmental offices of Baden-Württemberg, Thüringen, and Brandenburg (according to § 72 BbgNatSchG).
PY - 2013/3
Y1 - 2013/3
N2 - The relationship of different types of grassland use with plant species richness and composition (functional groups of herbs, legumes, and grasses) has so far been studied at small regional scales or comprising only few components of land use. We comprehensively studied the relationship between abandonment, fertilization, mowing intensity, and grazing by different livestock types on plant diversity and composition of 1514 grassland sites in three regions in North-East, Central and South-West Germany. We further considered environmental site conditions including soil type and topographical situation. Fertilized grasslands showed clearly reduced plant species diversity (-15% plant species richness, -0.1 Shannon diversity on fertilized grasslands plots of 16m2) and changed composition (-3% proportion of herb species), grazing had the second largest effects and mowing the smallest ones. Among the grazed sites, the ones grazed by sheep had higher than average species richness (+27%), and the cattle grazed ones lower (-42%). Further, these general results were strongly modulated by interactions between the different components of land use and by regional context: land-use effects differed largely in size and sometimes even in direction between regions. This highlights the importance of comparing different regions and to involve a large number of plots when studying relationships between land use and plant diversity. Overall, our results show that great caution is necessary when extrapolating results and management recommendations to other regions.
AB - The relationship of different types of grassland use with plant species richness and composition (functional groups of herbs, legumes, and grasses) has so far been studied at small regional scales or comprising only few components of land use. We comprehensively studied the relationship between abandonment, fertilization, mowing intensity, and grazing by different livestock types on plant diversity and composition of 1514 grassland sites in three regions in North-East, Central and South-West Germany. We further considered environmental site conditions including soil type and topographical situation. Fertilized grasslands showed clearly reduced plant species diversity (-15% plant species richness, -0.1 Shannon diversity on fertilized grasslands plots of 16m2) and changed composition (-3% proportion of herb species), grazing had the second largest effects and mowing the smallest ones. Among the grazed sites, the ones grazed by sheep had higher than average species richness (+27%), and the cattle grazed ones lower (-42%). Further, these general results were strongly modulated by interactions between the different components of land use and by regional context: land-use effects differed largely in size and sometimes even in direction between regions. This highlights the importance of comparing different regions and to involve a large number of plots when studying relationships between land use and plant diversity. Overall, our results show that great caution is necessary when extrapolating results and management recommendations to other regions.
KW - Biodiversity exploratories
KW - Functional groups
KW - Land use type
KW - Livestock type
KW - Shannon diversity
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84875384376&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.baae.2012.12.003
DO - 10.1016/j.baae.2012.12.003
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84875384376
SN - 1439-1791
VL - 14
SP - 126
EP - 136
JO - Basic and Applied Ecology
JF - Basic and Applied Ecology
IS - 2
ER -