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Abstract
Local, adaptive traditional grassland management systems have played a fundamental role in the creation, maintenance and conservation of high nature value (HNV) grasslands. The state of diverse HNV grasslands has deteriorated across Europe in conjunction with changes in various management factors, such as management type and management intensity. To conserve the species-rich vegetation of HNV grasslands and to avoid undesirable shifts in plant functional type dominance, it is important to explore the effects of management factors crucial for nature conservation and to adapt them to local circumstances. In our study, we focus on three of the main factors in the management of valuable meadow steppes in the Great Hungarian Plain region (Central Hungary). We studied management types (mowing, grazing and combined), different levels of herbage removal intensity (low, medium, high) and spatio-temporal complexity (low, medium and high) of grassland management. Altogether 172 plots (1 m × 1 m) were designated in 17 sites. Plant diversity indexes and plant functional types were calculated according to the presence and percentage cover of plant species in the plots. Regarding plant diversity and the dominance of plant functional types, herbage removal intensity and spatio-temporal complexity of management had, for the most part, stronger effects than the type of management. Higher spatio-temporal complexity of management resulted in higher plant diversity, while higher intensity of management led to significantly lower diversity. Proper application of type, intensity and spatio-temporal complexity of management practices (separately and in combination) proved to be determining factors in the long-term maintenance and conservation of diversity and species composition of HNV grasslands.
Highlights
High nature value (HNV) natural and semi-natural grasslands are organic and important elements of European natural and cultural landscapes which have usually been maintained by extensive management systems (Plieninger et al 2006; Söderström et al 2001)
Extensive management practices and the micro-scale land-use diversity of these systems has a positive effect on plant species diversity and on the proportion of different plant functional types (PFTs— e.g., forbs, Poaceae or Fabaceae species) (Kun et al 2019)
Higher spatio-temporal complexity of grassland management coupled with lower herbage removal intensity provides a great opportunity for more plant species with various competitive strategies to coexist (Austrheim and Eriksson 2001; Duru et al 2005)
Summary
High nature value (HNV) natural and semi-natural grasslands are organic and important elements of European natural and cultural landscapes which have usually been maintained by extensive (traditional) management systems (Plieninger et al 2006; Söderström et al 2001). Grassland ecosystems host 18.1% of the more than 6000 European endemic vascular plant taxa (Hobohm and Bruchmann 2009). This is nearly twice as many as in forests, despite the latter covering much more land area (Habel et al 2013). Determining factors are the spatially and temporally diverse combinations of several management elements with various levels of management intensity (e.g., hayseed sowing, manual control of undesirable species, livestock grazing, etc.) (Babai et al 2014; Kun et al 2019)
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