Abandonment or biomass production? Phytodiversity responses to land-use changes of semi-natural grasslands in northern Europe

Abstract

European semi-natural grasslands are hotspots for biodiversity and important for the provisioning of multiple ecosystem services, but their extent has declined considerably during the past century. Increasing demands for agricultural and forest biomass risk causing further loss of grasslands, raising concern about a goal conflict between climate mitigation and biodiversity conservation. This study focused on the loss of semi-natural grasslands in a mixed farm-forest landscape in southern Sweden by comparing plant diversity in grasslands with continuous grazing regimes to recently abandoned grasslands, improved grasslands (sown leys), and afforested grasslands. Compared to actively grazed grasslands, grasslands where grazing had been abandoned showed a lower plant species richness and fewer plant species of conservation concern, but similar species composition. In contrast, both improved and afforested grasslands showed >50 % lower species richness than abandoned and grazed grasslands, with profoundly different species composition. The dissimilarity in plant diversity between sites was primarily driven by the replacement of species (turnover), and trait-based analyses indicated that environmental filtering of light, management, and nutrient requirements of plants shaped the community differences. Furthermore, an increased cover of semi-natural grassland around the sites positively related to plant species richness and diversity, while an increased cropland coverage around the sites showed a negative relationship. Our results emphasize the importance of integrated land-use strategies that prioritize biodiversity conservation in mixed farm-forest landscapes, such as restoration of semi-natural grasslands and strategic planning of biomass production to avoid serious biodiversity losses.