Irreversible Impact of past Land Use on Forest Soils and Biodiversity

Dupouey, J. L.; Dambrine, E.; Laffite, J. D.; Moares, C.

doi:10.2307/3071833

Cited by 272 publications

(383 citation statements)

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“…In particular, rural abandonment in many industrialized countries led to major changes in traditional landscapes and the emergence of new landscape systems which are often extremely simplified (Ales et al 1992;MacDonald et al 2000). Most of present-day European forests are secondary forests that were once cleared and converted into farmland, and have now re-colonized grazing and agricultural areas abandoned over the last decades (Dupouey et al 2002;Hermy and Verheyen 2007;Sciama et al 2009). …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Anthropogenic drivers of plant diversity: perspective on land use change in a dynamic cultural landscape

et al. 2015

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Changes in land use are among the forces shaping Earth's surface. In many industrialized areas, the loss of a traditional state of dynamic equilibrium between traditional management and natural dynamics is followed by abandonment to regeneration processes. This can reduce ecological complexity at the landscape scale and negatively affect biodiversity patterns. In this study, we investigate the relation between land use change and plant species diversity in the network of protected areas (PAs) of the province of Siena (Tuscany, Central Italy). This is an area characterized by long-lasting human activities and highly renowned cultural landscapes. We used remotely sensed, mapping and ground based plant compositional data, to investigate the present pattern of plant species diversity, the changes of landscape structure and changes in forest habitats. Most of the plant diversity present in this network of PAs is due to broad scale gradients due to ecological diversity but also to human management. Most of the area is currently covered by forests and analysis of a historical sequence of spatial data reveals that this is largely a consequence of the abandonment of traditional management during the last decades. Finally, focusing on forest succession as a consequence of land use change, we demonstrate that species richness significantly declines with increasing age of forest stands. Taken together, our results confirm that the recent trends of rural abandonment are leading Communicated by Mauro Agnoletti.to homogenization and biodiversity loss in traditional landscapes of Mediterranean Europe. We discuss implications for policy, and suggest that PA management in cultural and historical landscapes should pay increasing attention traditional anthropic practices.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Anthropogenic drivers of plant diversity: perspective on land use change in a dynamic cultural landscape

et al. 2015

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“…Consequently, soil P concentrations are often still elevated hundreds to thousands years after agriculture has been abandoned (Wood et al 1984;Koerner et al 1997;Dupouey et al 2002;McLauchlan 2006;Dambrine et al 2007;Plue et al 2008), making them excellent indicators of previous agricultural activity. The elevated P concentrations may result in a paradox for the development of forest vegetation on agricultural land: higher P bioavailability can on the one hand stimulate stand productivity and tree growth (Fischer and Binkley 2000), but on the other, it can hamper the development of typical forest plant communities Baeten et al 2010a, b;De Frenne et al 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Four decades of post-agricultural forest development have caused major redistributions of soil phosphorus fractions

et al. 2011

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Fertilisation of agricultural land causes an accumulation of nutrients in the top soil layer, among which phosphorus (P) is particularly persistent. Changing land use from farmland to forest affects soil properties, but changes in P pools have rarely been studied despite their importance to forest ecosystem development. Here, we describe the redistributions of the P pools in a four-decadal chronosequence of post-agricultural common oak (Quercus robur L.) forests in Belgium and Denmark. The aim was to assess whether forest age causes a repartitioning of P throughout the various soil P pools (labile P, slowly cycling P and occluded P); in particular, we addressed the time-related alterations in the inorganic versus organic P fractions. In less than 40 years of oak forest development, significant redistributions have occurred between different P fractions. While both the labile and the slowly cycling inorganic P fractions significantly decreased with forest age, the organic fractions significantly increased. The labile P pool (inorganic + organic), which is considered to be the pool of P most likely to contribute to plant-available P, significantly decreased with forest age (from >20 to <10% of total P), except in the 0-5 cm of topsoil, where labile P remained persistently high. The shift from inorganic to organic P and the shifts between the different inorganic P fractions are driven by biological processes and also by physicochemical changes related to forest development. It is concluded that the organic labile P fraction, which is readily mineralisable, should be taken into account when studying the bioavailable P pool in forest ecosystems.

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“…These effects have consequences, not only for the C sink capacity of the ecosystem but also for water and energy exchange between the land and the atmosphere (Foley et al, 2003), which also has important, albeit still highly uncertain, implications for regional climate change (e.g., Arora and Montenegro, 2011;Brovkin et al, 2013;de NobletDucoudre et al, 2012). Some studies have detected an influence of ancient agriculture on forest composition and diversity even thousands of years later (Dambrine et al, 2007;Dupouey et al, 2002;Willis et al, 2004). However, the persistence of legacy effects varies considerably with former LU, geographical location, sampling methods and examined variables, making recovery trajectories often hard to predict (Cramer et al, 2008;Foster et al, 2003;Guariguata and Ostertag, 2001;Norden et al, 2015;Post and Kwon, 2000;Suding et al, 2004).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impacts of land-use history on the recovery of ecosystems after agricultural abandonment

et al. 2016

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Abstract. Land-use changes have been shown to have large effects on climate and biogeochemical cycles, but so far most studies have focused on the effects of conversion of natural vegetation to croplands and pastures. By contrast, relatively little is known about the long-term influence of past agriculture on vegetation regrowth and carbon sequestration following land abandonment. We used the LPJ-GUESS dynamic vegetation model to study the legacy effects of different land-use histories (in terms of type and duration) across a range of ecosystems. To this end, we performed six idealized simulations for Europe and Africa in which we made a transition from natural vegetation to either pasture or cropland, followed by a transition back to natural vegetation after 20, 60 or 100 years. The simulations identified substantial differences in recovery trajectories of four key variables (vegetation composition, vegetation carbon, soil carbon, net biome productivity) after agricultural cessation. Vegetation carbon and composition typically recovered faster than soil carbon in subtropical, temperate and boreal regions, and vice versa in the tropics. While the effects of different land-use histories on recovery periods of soil carbon stocks often differed by centuries across our simulations, differences in recovery times across simulations were typically small for net biome productivity (a few decades) and modest for vegetation carbon and composition (several decades). Spatially, we found the greatest sensitivity of recovery times to prior land use in boreal forests and subtropical grasslands, where post-agricultural productivity was strongly affected by prior land management. Our results suggest that land-use history is a relevant factor affecting ecosystems long after agricultural cessation, and it should be considered not only when assessing historical or future changes in simulations of the terrestrial carbon cycle but also when establishing long-term monitoring networks and interpreting data derived therefrom, including analysis of a broad range of ecosystem properties or local climate effects related to land cover changes.

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Irreversible Impact of past Land Use on Forest Soils and Biodiversity

Cited by 272 publications

References 11 publications

Anthropogenic drivers of plant diversity: perspective on land use change in a dynamic cultural landscape

Anthropogenic drivers of plant diversity: perspective on land use change in a dynamic cultural landscape

Four decades of post-agricultural forest development have caused major redistributions of soil phosphorus fractions

Impacts of land-use history on the recovery of ecosystems after agricultural abandonment

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