Assessing Restoration Potential of Semi-natural Grasslands by Landscape Change Trajectories

Abstract

Species-rich semi-natural grasslands have rapidly declined and become fragmented in Northern Europe due to ceased traditional agricultural practices and animal husbandry. Restoration actions have been introduced in many places to improve the habitat conditions and increase the area to prevent any further losses of their ecological values. However, given the limited resources and long time span needed for successful restoration, it is essential to target activities on sites having a suitable initial state and where the effects of restoration are most beneficial for the habitat network. In this paper we present a conceptual framework for evaluating the restoration potential of partially overgrown and selectively managed semi-natural grasslands in a moderately transformed agricultural environment in south-western Finland. On the basis of the spatio-temporal landscape trajectory analysis, we construct potential restoration scenarios based on expected semi-natural grassland characteristics that are derived from land productivity, detected grassland continuum, and date of overgrowth. These scenarios are evaluated using landscape metrics, their feasibility is discussed and the effects of potential restoration are compared to the present extent of open semi-natural grasslands. Our results show that landscape trajectory analysis and scenario construction can be valuable tools for the restoration planning of semi-natural grasslands with limited resources. The approach should therefore be considered as an essential tool to find the most optimal restoration sites and to pre-evaluate the effects.

Loss of semi-natural grassland in a boreal landscape: impacts of agricultural intensification and abandonment

“…We implemented a threshold distance of 100 m based on the topography of the study area with small hills that can separate patches and act as a barrier for dispersal of species or for management, i.e. similar arguments as used by Pitkänen, Mussaari, and Käyhkö (2014).…”

Contemporary spatial and environmental factors determine vascular plant species richness on highly fragmented meadows in Central Finland

“…Therefore meadow habitats are a central target for conservation action on national level (Heikkinen 2007). Most of the Finnish studies exploring the ecological effects of past land uses have been conducted in southern parts of the country (Luoto et al 2003a;Pykälä et al 2005;Pykälä 2007;Pitkänen et al 2014Pitkänen et al , 2016Lampinen et al 2017). However, due to regional differences in biogeography and agricultural history (Ahti et al 1968;Soininen 1974), the biological legacies may express alternative patterns in other parts of the country.…”

Utilizing historical maps in identification of long-term land use and land cover changes

“…The decline of arable land and grasslands in southern Finland during the past decades has been reported, for example by Ruuska and Helenius ( 1996 ) and Pitkänen et al. ( 2014 ). Countrywide, agricultural land area was 2.7 million ha in the 1960s, with a decrease after that to 2.2 million hectares in 2021 (Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke) 2022 ).…”