Soil feedback does not explain mowing effects on vegetation structure in a semi-natural grassland

Ilmarinen, Katja; Mikola, Juha

doi:10.1016/j.actao.2009.08.008

Cited by 31 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…In more than half of the yards of this kind Trifolium repens was a codominant species. This species forms large dense patches scattered randomly through the lawn successfully surviving in intense mowing conditions, as found also by Ilmarinen and Mikola (2009). Among forbs, Plantago major and Taraxacum officinale were both dominant and frequent, tolerating the high mowing regime to a great extent, in agreement with Ellenberg (1952) and Klotz and Briemle (2002).…”

Section: Effects Of Mowingsupporting

confidence: 76%

“…Schippers and Joenje (2002) suggested that mowing and hay removal are a way to increase species diversity in grassland communities. However, Ilmarinen and Mikola (2009) found that mowing did not affect the species number, diversity or evenness of semi-natural grasslands as we also found in our study. Mown yards showed the same species-abundance diversity and evenness as trampled yards.…”

Section: Effects Of Mowingsupporting

confidence: 69%

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Composition and Diversity of Lawn Flora in Differently Managed Village Yards – A Case Study from Southwestern Hungary

et al. 2012

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Traditionally managed village yards have been disappearing from the CentralEuropean countryside. Their lawn flora is likely to provide a unique habitat for many plants that are adapted to this environment. Composition of lawn flora was investigated in differently managed village yards (i.e., regularly mown and regularly trampled yards, poultry yards, paved yards) in southwestern Hungary. The main goal of the study was to detect the impacts of these different management regimes on the composition and diversity of the vegetation. In total, 240 1-m 2 plots were sampled in 60 yards ranging from 80 m 2 to 5000 m 2 . In the redundancy analysis, eight significant variables (degree of southness, slope, age, total size of yards; mowing, trampling and grazing regime; and the number of dogs) explained 16% of the total variation in species data. The most diverse flora across yards was detected in the paved ones, and their stands also proved to be the most compositionally distinctive. In contrast, presence of domestic animals can contribute to local species loss as well as to a decrease in within-yard-type variability. These results highlight the importance of certain anthropogenic disturbances in maintaining high plant diversity, but also underline the crucial role of small-scale land management practices in rural environments.

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Section: Effects Of Mowingsupporting

confidence: 76%

Section: Effects Of Mowingsupporting

confidence: 69%

Composition and Diversity of Lawn Flora in Differently Managed Village Yards – A Case Study from Southwestern Hungary

et al. 2012

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“…We found higher isopod abundance in hay meadows formed during the long-term process. Similarly, Ilmarinen and Mikola [10] reported that mowing increased the number of bacterial feeder decomposers. Opposite to this, according to Sankaran and Augustine [51], defoliation can decrease the abundance and activity of soil decomposers in the long term.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Grassland reconstruction treatments are composed of shrub removal followed by either mowing or grazing or burning [3]. Shrub removal can create changes in the vegetation structure of habitats in the short term, and it is followed by mowing, causing the changes in vegetation composition in the long term [10]. The alteration of habitats contributes to the changes in environmental factors, which affects food utilization, reproductive pattern [41], and the respiration of isopods.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Similarly, Turgeon [9] reported that mowing is detrimental from a botanical standpoint. Opposite to this, Ilmarinen and Mikola [10] concluded that mowing increased the areal cover of legumes, and it has less effect on the areal cover of individual woody species compared to the total cover of the woody plant group that is reduced. High floral diversity positively affects the diversity of flower-visiting insects [11] and therefore predatory arthropods such as spiders [12,13,14,15] and beetles [16].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The short- and long-term effects of changes of vegetation structure on isopod (Oniscidea) diversity and composition in Mátra Mountains

Vona-Túri

Szmatona-Túri²

2017

Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Agriculture and Environment

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Abstract. The aim of the present study was to examine the short-and long-term effects of changes in vegetation structure caused by shrub removal and mowing on isopod diversity and composition in Natura 2000 habitats of Mátra Landscape Protection Area. Species richness and isopod diversity increased in the short term as a result of annual changes in vegetation; however, the values of both indices were reduced in the long term. The changes in vegetation structure on a regional scale led to a reduced isopod diversity in the short and long term. The changes in vegetation structure caused alterations in community structure in the long term. We conclude that changes of vegetation structure have a negative effect on species richness and the diversity of isopod communities in the long term.

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Morphological and physiological traits of dominant plant species in response to mowing in a temperate steppe

Zhang

Bai

et al. 2023

Ecological Applications

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Mowing is common grassland management to feed livestock during winter by harvesting hay in many high-latitude regions in autumn. The trait-based approach has been used to explain the responses of the plant community to disturbance resulting from environmental changes and human activities. However, few studies have focused on the mechanisms underlying the responses of grassland ecosystems to mowing from the perspective of plant traits. Here, we investigated the effects of mowing on the plant community of a temperate steppe in Inner Mongolia of northern China by field experiments to dissect the trade-off between morphological and physiological traits in response to shortterm (4 years) and long-term (16 years) mowing. Specifically, we evaluated the two strategies associated with the nutrient acquisition of two dominant species in response to mowing by measuring leaf and root morphological traits and physiological traits of root carboxylate exudation, arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) colonization and soil microbial community. We found that long-term mowing, but not short-term mowing, led to an increase in species richness. In addition, mowing decreased the overall plant biomass of the grassland community, but enhanced and suppressed the growth of forbs and grasses, respectively. However, the ratio of forbs to grasses in the community was dependent on mowing duration, such that forbs became more dominant than the grasses under long-term mowing. Our results revealed that short-term mowing reduced soil microbial biodiversity and root colonization of AMF in the grass Stipa krylovii, while the root AMF colonization and carboxylate exudation in the forb Artemisia frigida were enhanced by short-term mowing. In long-term mowing, the functional traits associated with leaf resource conservation (i.e., leaf tissue density) and root resource acquisition were reduced in the grass, while the functional traits related to leaf resource acquisition and root resource conservation were increased in the forb, highlighting the species specificity and divergence in leaf and root traits in the grass and forb of temperate steppe in response to mowing. These novel findings demonstrate that physiological and morphological strategies are the main drivers for dominant species in response to mowing in temperate grasslands.

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Soil feedback does not explain mowing effects on vegetation structure in a semi-natural grassland

Cited by 31 publications

References 30 publications

Composition and Diversity of Lawn Flora in Differently Managed Village Yards – A Case Study from Southwestern Hungary

Composition and Diversity of Lawn Flora in Differently Managed Village Yards – A Case Study from Southwestern Hungary

The short- and long-term effects of changes of vegetation structure on isopod (Oniscidea) diversity and composition in Mátra Mountains

Morphological and physiological traits of dominant plant species in response to mowing in a temperate steppe

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