Abstract
Understanding the land use history has proven crucial for the conservation of biodiversity in the agricultural landscape. In southern Sweden, very small and fragmented areas of the disturbance-dependent habitat xeric sand calcareous grassland support a large number of threatened and rare plants and animals. In order to find out if historical land use could explain variation in present-day habitat quality, the land use on eight such sites was traced back to the 18th century and compared with key factors such as the amount of bare sand, lime content and P availability. There was no support for the common explanation of the decline in xeric sand calcareous grassland being caused by abandonment of agricultural fields during the last century. Instead, fertilization history was the main explanation for the difference in depletion depth of CaCO3 seen between the sites. The decline in xeric sand calcareous grassland since the 18th century is most probably the result of the drastic changes in land use during the 19th century, which put an end to the extensive sand drift. Since cultivation was shown to have played an important role in the historical land use of xeric sand calcareous grassland, grazing alone may not be the optimal management option for these grasslands. Instead more drastic measures are needed to restore the high calcium content and maintain proper disturbance levels.
Highlights
There is a growing awareness among conservation biologists regarding the importance of land use history and local management practices when implementing conservation and restoration measures for biodiversity and threatened species [1,2,3]
An important finding of this study was that all the flat sites with xeric sand calcareous grassland included in the study had been cultivated in the past, which suggests that former agricultural practices were important in creating the habitat where natural erosion does not occur
There was no support for the common explanation of the decline in xeric sand calcareous grassland being caused by abandonment of agricultural fields during the last century, i.e. that the old agricultural practices in these grasslands were abandoned
Summary
There is a growing awareness among conservation biologists regarding the importance of land use history and local management practices when implementing conservation and restoration measures for biodiversity and threatened species [1,2,3]. Perhaps the best example of such sandy habitats is the threatened xeric sand calcareous grassland (Natura 2000 code 6120, 2002/83/EC Habitat Directive), which is home to several endangered species of vascular plants [8,9,10], bryophytes [11], fungi [12] and invertebrates [13]. These habitats are dry, open grasslands on calcareous, more or less humus-free, nutrient-poor and well-drained sandy soils with a discontinuous vegetation cover. In eastern Skane (southern Sweden), these grasslands developed on lime-rich glaciofluvial sand [8,16], which was deposited by glacial meltwater when the ice retreated around
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