Plant species richness and composition in the arable land of Kosovo

Abstract

T his study investigates today's plant species richness and composition in cultivated and recently abandoned arable land of Kosovo. Relationships between these aspects of vegetation and both environmental features and agricultural management measures are studied at the regional and plot scale. In 2006, 432 vegetation relevés with a standard plot size of 25 m² were recorded in cultivated fields. In 2007, data collection focussed on 41 plots in arable fields that had been abandoned the year before. With respect to the environment, data analysis accounts for topography, soil base-richness and moisture, and geographic location. As to the management, crops and weed control are considered. A total number of 235 species was documented. In comparison to literature dating back to about 1980, the regional weed flora considerably changed. At the plot scale, today's weed flora of Kosovo is fairly species-poor and species composition is rather uniform between plots. According to General Regression Model analyses, Indicator Species Analyses and Detrended Correspondence Analyses, species richness and composition mainly differ between crops and weed management, with highest mean species richness in recently abandoned and lowest in herbicide-treated maize fields.

Germination traits of three weed species in Kosovo

“…Considering the longer vegetation period in the western part of Kosovo, a higher plasticity in germination behaviour there might promote a stronger weed infestation. With respect to D. stramonium, this result is in accordance with Mehmeti et al (2009). In this study, D. stramonium was found to be an indicator species (sensu Dufrêne and Legendre 1997), reaching higher abundances and frequencies in the western part of Kosovo.…”

“…For economic reasons and due to a lack of supply, herbicide use has remained restricted to parts of the arable land in the last two decades (cf. Mehmeti et al 2008Mehmeti et al , 2009.…”

“…land fragmentation, lack of machinery), one is the predominance of three main weeds, Amaranthus retroflexus, Echinochloa crus-galli and Datura stramonium. These three species are both frequent at the regional scale and abundant at the plot scale (Mehmeti et al 2009). Their competition with crops often leads to significant yield losses (Knežević et al 1995, Bosnic and Swanton 1997, Cavero et al 1999, Oljaća et al 2006.…”

“…Further, chemical or mechanical control measures may endanger other rare plant species (cf. Mehmeti et al 2009). To counteract the agronomic and ecological problems mainly caused by 3 problematic weed species, strategies should be implemented to reduce the level of infestation and, at the…”

Effect of a Toolkit and a One-Day Teacher Education Workshop on ESD Teaching Content and Methods—A Study from Kosovo

“…Alternative concepts would want to generate cyclical, cradle-to-cradle metabolisms that enable materials to maintain their status as resources (upcycling) [33]. Other important issues in Kosovo are deforestation and the overall loss of biodiversity [34,35].…”