River embankments mitigate the loss of grassland biodiversity in agricultural landscapes

Abstract

Agricultural intensification has resulted in severe declines in the extent and diversity of seminatural habitats in Europe, whereas the extent of secondary habitats has increased considerably. River embankments have become one of the most extensive and widespread secondary habitats in former floodplains. We compared the diversity patterns of secondary dry and wet grasslands on river embankments with those of seminatural dry and wet grasslands in a Hungarian agricultural landscape using the following community descriptors: (a) species diversity, (b) phylogenetic diversity and (c) functional diversity. We also performed trait‐based analyses to evaluate the ecosystem services provided by these secondary grasslands. Both grassland types of the embankments showed significantly higher Shannon diversity compared with their seminatural counterparts. The cover of generalist species (i.e., cosmopolitan species, weeds and nonindigenous plant species) was high in the secondary grasslands. We found significant differences in phylogenetic diversity between the secondary and seminatural grasslands: secondary grasslands showed significantly lower mean nearest taxon distances than the seminatural grasslands. Functional diversity did not differ between the secondary and seminatural grasslands according to the Rao's quadratic entropy. However, we found higher community‐weighted means of specific leaf area, plant height and flowering period in the secondary grasslands, which are related to important ecosystem services (via biomass production and pollination). Well‐planned management actions and restoration activities could help further improve the ecological function and conservation value of secondary grasslands on river embankments, contributing to the maintenance of species diversity and sustaining the functionality of ecosystems in agricultural landscapes.

Fragmented dry grasslands preserve unique components of plant species and phylogenetic diversity in agricultural landscapes

“…Due to the dense seed bank, high dispersal ability and high regeneration potential of weeds and generalists, they have a higher chance to re-establish in the disturbed patches than specialists; thus, in the long term, their populations dominate these habitats (Cousins 2006). Even though linear landscape elements have the potential to act as green corridors for grassland specialists given their connections to continuous grasslands (Bátori et al 2016(Bátori et al , 2020, they may also provide corridors for generalist and weed species, especially in transformed landscapes (Fekete et al 2018), where their spread is enhanced by transportation and by mowing machinery (Tikka et al 2000).…”

The Eurasian crane (Grus grus) as an ecosystem engineer in grasslands: Conservation values, ecosystem services, and disservices related to a large iconic bird species

“…We found that crane‐disturbed areas provided floral resources for a longer time and in larger quantity than undisturbed grassland (Table 2, Figure 4). This can support the maintenance of insect diversity, especially pollinator assemblages and palynivores (Bátori et al, 2020). This service has an especially high conservation importance in grass‐dominated habitats such as the studied ecosystem with relatively few nectar‐producing plants.…”

Post‐restoration grassland management overrides the effects of restoration methods in propagule‐rich landscapes

“…Communities that combine subsets of the native species pool and disturbance‐tolerant, functionally distinct groups of species also show this pattern compared to intact communities (Bátori et al. 2020 ). This indicates that high functionality is not necessarily a good indicator of restoration success or intactness, even though recommended by some studies (Laughlin 2014 ).…”