Effects of reindeer grazing on understorey vegetation in dry Pinus sylvestris forests

Abstract

Abstract. Data on floristic composition and environmental variables were collected in floristically homogeneous oligotrophic pine (Pinus sylvestris) forests with heath‐like under‐ storey vegetation in eastern Fennoscandia, and ordinated by non‐linear multidimensional scaling (NMDS) in order to study the effect of lichen grazing by reindeer on the understorey vegetation. The study sites included areas with varying grazing pressure, as well as 50‐yr old grazing exclosures. Sites rich in respectively bryophytes and lichens were placed at opposite ends of the ordination axes, and heavily grazed sites were placed in between them. Reindeer grazing increased the abundance of bryophytes, especially Dicranum spp. and Pleurozium schreberi. Grazing changed the vegetation to the extent that it resembled more mesotrophic sites, but this did not show any relationship with tree volume or other site productivity indicators. This was observed both in the ordination and, in a more compelling way, when exclosures with adjacent grazed areas were compared. No such signs were evident at ungrazed sites, where especially Cladina spp. spatially replace Cladonia spp. and tiny bryophytes like Barbilophozia spp., Polytrichum spp. and Pohlia nutans during succession. Cladina stellaris had almost disappeared from the most intensively grazed sites.The soil at ungrazed sites was characterized by high Al and Fe concentrations and bryophyte‐rich sites by high Mn concentrations. Shannon's diversity index, depth of humus layer and proportion of bare ground also increased in sites getting richer in bryophytes.