Abstract
The two most common approaches to target species introduction in European meadow restoration are green‐hay transfer from species‐rich donor sites and the use of diverse seed mixtures reflecting the chosen target community. The potential of both approaches to restore species‐rich grassland has been variously reviewed, but very few studies have experimentally compared them at one and the same site. Moreover, studies involving one or both approaches have rarely taken into account environmental gradients at a site, and measured the impacts of such gradients on restoration outcomes. Such gradients do, for example, exist during grassland restoration on former arable land in river floodplains, where gradients in the occurrence of flooding, and in associated edaphic characteristics such as nutrient availability, might affect restoration outcomes. Using a randomized complete block experimental design, based on five different indicators of restoration progress, we compared the usefulness of green‐hay application and diverse seeding to restore species‐rich grazed meadows of the MG5 grassland type according to the British National Vegetation Classification, and also investigated how restoration outcomes differed after 4 years between areas within experimental plots characterized by high flood risk and areas characterized by low flood risk. Overall, both restoration approaches yielded similar results over the course of the experiment, whereas high flood risk and associated edaphic factors such as high availability of phosphorus negatively affected restoration progress particularly in terms of floristic similarity to restoration targets. These results highlight the need to take into account environmental gradients during meadow restoration.
Highlights
Due to agricultural intensification, species-rich lowland seminatural grassland has markedly declined in extent over the last 70 years both in the United Kingdom (Bullock et al 2011; Ridding et al 2015) and in continental Europe (Veen et al.April 2021 Restoration Ecology Vol 29, No S1, e131802009)
A requirement of sufficiently low levels of available P has been identified as prerequisite for high plant species richness in grassland (Janssens et al 1998; Critchley et al 2002a)
Olsen-P and extractable K are still high in these high-flood-risk areas, whereas in low-flood-risk areas, P levels are already lower than those found at local arable reference sites, and K levels are at the lower end of the range of values at these sites
Summary
Species-rich lowland seminatural grassland has markedly declined in extent over the last 70 years both in the United Kingdom (Bullock et al 2011; Ridding et al 2015) and in continental Europe (Veen et al.April 2021 Restoration Ecology Vol 29, No S1, e131802009). Species-rich lowland seminatural grassland has markedly declined in extent over the last 70 years both in the United Kingdom (Bullock et al 2011; Ridding et al 2015) and in continental Europe In the United Kingdom, conversion into agriculturally improved grassland has been a main driver of this decline (Ridding et al 2015). In the case of grazed hay meadows of the Cynosurus cristatus–Centaurea nigra type, classified as MG5 grassland in the British National Vegetation Classification (NVC; Rodwell 1992), and once the most widespread type of lowland hay meadow in Britain (Rodwell et al 2007), less than 10,000 ha are left across England and Wales (Maddock 2008). There is a substantial risk of local extinction of MG5 specialist
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