Challenges and opportunities for grassland restoration: A global perspective of best practices in the era of climate change

Lyons, Kelly G.; Török, Péter; Hermann, Julia-Maria; Kiehl, Kathrin; Kirmer, Anita; Kollmann, Johannes; Overbeck, Gerhard E.; Tischew, Sabine; Allen, Edith B.; Bakker, Jonathan D.; Brigham, Christy; Buisson, Elise; Crawford, Kerri; Dunwiddie, Peter; Firn, Jennifer; Grobert, Devin; Hickman, Karen; Stradic, Soizig LE; Temperton, Vicky M.

doi:10.1016/j.gecco.2023.e02612

Cited by 22 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 188 publications

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“…In temperate regions, changes towards more fertile conditions have often been reported, promoting fast-growing and dominant species and leading to vegetation shifts. This development is challenging and can require additional measures, such as adapted land-use regimes, when the goal is to maintain and restore the typical species composition and diversity of particular vegetation types (Lyons et al 2023). Besides drastic measures, one opportunity can be the introduction of an additional management event or modi ed management methods, such as an additional cutting event or sward disturbance, that help remove biomass and nutrients, reduce dominant plant species, prevent litter accumulation, create open patches, and activate the soil seedbank (Bobbink and Willems 1993;Turner et al 2006;Foster et al 2007;Klaus et al 2018;Lyons et al 2023).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This in turn can lead to shifts in species composition towards just a few dominant species and the loss of typical grassland species, re ected by a transition Global-change-induced shifts in environmental conditions might additionally cause species losses and altered species composition, leading to transitions to different vegetation types, even when traditional land-use regimes are maintained (e.g. Dise et al 2011;Lyons et al 2023). In temperate regions, changes towards more fertile conditions have often been reported, promoting fast-growing and dominant species and leading to vegetation shifts.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This development is challenging and can require additional measures, such as adapted land-use regimes, when the goal is to maintain and restore the typical species composition and diversity of particular vegetation types (Lyons et al 2023). Besides drastic measures, one opportunity can be the introduction of an additional management event or modi ed management methods, such as an additional cutting event or sward disturbance, that help remove biomass and nutrients, reduce dominant plant species, prevent litter accumulation, create open patches, and activate the soil seedbank (Bobbink and Willems 1993;Turner et al 2006;Foster et al 2007;Klaus et al 2018;Lyons et al 2023). While an additional cutting event is rather cost intensive, as it requires another visit to the site, sward and topsoil disturbance methods such as a modi ed lawn scarifying approach that opens the soil by removing litter and dense moss cover could be a low-cost alternative because it can complement mowing and be applied on the same day after the mowing.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Traditional haymaking is essential to sustain and restore species-rich subalpine grasslands

Boch,

Blaser,

Föhr

et al. 2024

Preprint

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The high plant diversity in subalpine grasslands is threatened by the abandonment of land use, such as traditional haymaking. In addition, changing environmental conditions might lead to vegetation shifts even when traditional land use is maintained, as observed in mountain grasslands in Switzerland during the last decades. Maintaining and restoring the typical diversity of such grasslands might therefore require modified management methods. We conducted a six-year experiment to assess the responses of plant species richness, mean ecological indicator values, and vegetation composition to five management treatments: traditional haymaking, traditional haymaking complemented by scraping (i.e. manual raking) in autumn, traditional haymaking complemented by scraping in spring, only scraping in spring, and abandonment. We hypothesized that haymaking complemented by scraping in either season would remove additional biomass, reduce inter-specific competition, and increase species richness by creating open patches that can promote species establishment. We found positive effects of haymaking complemented by scraping and negative effects of abandonment on plant species richness. In addition, combining haymaking and scraping tended to positively affect habitat quality, indicated by changes in mean indicator values, while abandonment showed the opposite effect. Interestingly, traditional haymaking combined with scraping in autumn promoted the development of the vegetation towards the composition similar to the originally present vegetation type. Our findings show that traditional land use is essential to maintain species-rich subalpine grasslands. Further, they imply that traditional land use can be modified to compensate for the negative developments caused by environmental changes and help restore the typical vegetation.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Traditional haymaking is essential to sustain and restore species-rich subalpine grasslands

Boch,

Blaser,

Föhr

et al. 2024

Preprint

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“…Herbaceous plants typically support a range of invertebrates, including pollinators, and a variety of wildlife species that require food resources from herbaceous plants or insects and open, 'clutter'-free vegetation structure [4][5][6][7][8]. In addition to habitat and species loss, forestation can decrease resistance and resiliency to severe fires, damaging insect outbreaks, windfall, and die-offs due to drought, along with increasing water use by trees, which may be exacerbated by climate change [9][10][11][12]. Open ecosystems supply unique ecosystem services, encompassing wildlife support, food and forage production, pollination, disturbance regulation, water supply, and cultural importance [6,7,10,13].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Differentiating Historical Open Forests and Current Closed Forests of the Coastal Plain, Southeastern USA

Tatina,

Hanberry,

Willis

2024

Forests

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The southeastern United States was historically characterized by open forests featuring fire-adapted species before land-use change. We compared tree composition and densities of historical tree surveys (1802 to 1841) to contemporary tree surveys, with the application of a similarity metric, in the Coastal Plain ecological province of Mississippi, southeastern USA. We detected the boundary between historical pine and oak-pine open forests and differentiated historical and current forests. In the Coastal Plain, historical open forests converted from fire-tolerant longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) dominance, with pines comprising 88% of all trees, to loblolly (Pinus taeda) and slash (P. elliottii) pines within monocultures (45% of all trees). Wetland and successional tree species increased to 33% of all trees. Contemporary forests have greater tree densities, transitioning from closed woodlands (range of 168 to 268 trees ha−1) to closed forests (336 trees ha−1). In the ecotonal boundary of the northern Coastal Plain between historical pine and pine-oak woodlands, the pine component shifted over space from 88% to 34% of all trees due to a greater oak component. Fire-tolerant shortleaf pine and oak dominance converted to planted loblolly pine (52% of all trees), while successional tree species increased (20% of all trees). Historical tree densities represented woodlands (range of 144 to 204 trees ha−1) but developed into closed forests (400 trees ha−1). Historical Coastal Plain longleaf pine woodlands differed more from historical ecotonal oak-pine woodlands than contemporary forests differed from each other, demonstrating unique historical ecosystems and landscape-scale homogenization of ecosystems through forestation.

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“…Many priority effect studies have focused on reducing the performance of unwanted invasive species by sowing target species first to keep the invader out (Hess et al, 2019; Martin & Wilsey, 2012; Yannelli et al, 2020). However, the key limitation for grassland restoration is not invasive species, but a need for restoring diversity and aiming for higher productivity, resilience to drought or sequestering carbon in soils (Lyons et al, 2023). Sowing certain species or PFG before others may induce desired trajectories that create the kind of multifunctional outcomes we are currently looking for (Weidlich et al, 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring priority and year effects on plant diversity, productivity and vertical root distribution: first insights from a grassland field experiment

Alonso-Crespo,

Temperton,

Fichtner

et al. 2023

Preprint

Self Cite

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The order of arrival of plant species during community assembly can affect how species interact with each other. These so-called priority effects can have strong implications for the structure and functioning of plant communities. However, the extent to which the strength, direction, and persistence of priority effects are modulated by weather conditions during plant establishment (‘year effects’) is not well known.Here we present the first results from a long-term field experiment (POEM: PriOrity Effects Mechanisms) initiated in 2020 in Northern Germany to test how plant functional group (PFG) order of arrival and the year of initiation of an experiment interactively affect the structure and functioning of nutrient-poor dry acidic grasslands, both above and belowground. To do this, we established the same experiment, manipulating the order of arrival of forbs, grasses and legumes on the same site, but in different years.We found that time since establishment was a stronger driver of plant community composition than PFG order of arrival and year of initiation. These three factors interactively affected plant species diversity, with the effect of PFG order of arrival on plant species richness depending on time since establishment. Year of initiation, not PFG order of arrival, was the strongest driver of aboveground community productivity. Although we did not find any effect of PFG order of arrival on root productivity, it had a strong impact on the vertical distribution of roots. Communities where grasses were sown first rooted more shallowly than communities in which forbs or legumes were sown first.Synthesis: Our results demonstrate that plant order of arrival and year effects jointly affect plant diversity and species composition, with time since establishment also playing an important role. While year effects were more important than plant order of arrival in modulating aboveground biomass production in our nutrient-poor grassland, we showed that plant order of arrival can strongly affect the vertical distribution of roots, with communities in which forbs or legumes were sown first rooting deeper than grasses-first communities. These results suggest that a deeper understanding of priority and year effects is needed to better predict restoration outcomes.

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Challenges and opportunities for grassland restoration: A global perspective of best practices in the era of climate change

Cited by 22 publications

References 188 publications

Traditional haymaking is essential to sustain and restore species-rich subalpine grasslands

Traditional haymaking is essential to sustain and restore species-rich subalpine grasslands

Differentiating Historical Open Forests and Current Closed Forests of the Coastal Plain, Southeastern USA

Exploring priority and year effects on plant diversity, productivity and vertical root distribution: first insights from a grassland field experiment

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