Three years of vegetation development worth 30 years of secondary succession in urban‐industrial grassland restoration

Abstract

Questions:The restoration of unused urban-industrial areas has largely been neglected despite their great potential for nature conservation purposes. We applied three plant introduction treatments at a highly degraded industrial area to test whether plant material introduced onto industrial areas initiates plant assemblages similar in composition to those of reference grasslands. We specifically asked (a) Does restoration differ between primary and secondary reference sites in terms of overall species richness and cover three years after the introduction of plant material? (b) What is the sociability of species of the vegetation resulting from different treatments?Location: Restoration and reference grassland sites with acidic sandy soil in the temperate region of the EU, NE Hungary, Nyírség. Methods:As restoration techniques, we (a) directly seeded a single dominant species, (b) applied a commercial seed mixture, and (c) transferred hay. We compared species composition, cover, species richness and sociability of species in restoration treatments to reference grasslands. Inventories of vascular plant species were made at five randomly placed 2 m × 2 m sampling units per plot. Results:The species composition of seeded restoration plots (with a single dominant species and a commercial seed mixture) became similar to that of reference grasslands. Both types of seeding resulted in a similar cover, whereas seeding a commercial seed mixture and hay transfer resulted in a species richness similar to that of reference grasslands. The cover of the natural constituents (NC) of seeded plots also reached that of reference grasslands, while hay addition resulted in a lower cover and a higher number of NC than other methods. Conclusions:The introduction of propagules in degraded industrial areas can provide communities similar, after three years, to those of secondary reference grasslands that are 30 years of age. We conclude that investing in the restoration of native grasslands at unused urban-industrial sites can be a great opportunity to enhance biodiversity. K E Y W O R D Sdry grassland, hay transfer, industrial area, multiple reference sites, old fields, seed sowing, sociability of species, species richness, urban-industrial restoration, vegetation cover | 139

Trait‐based approach confirms the importance of propagule limitation and assembly rules in old‐field restoration

“…From the treatments applied, early seeding of a limited number of target species had the most visible impact on species and trait composition that is in line with strong propagule limitation expected in old‐field restoration (Bakker et al ; Török et al ). Our results support the view that seeding (or introduction of vegetative forms) are crucial to vegetation restoration (Kiehl et al ; Merritt & Dixon ) as they speed up the recovery of degraded habitats (Kövendi‐Jakó et al ).…”

“…Spontaneous succession is increasingly involved in grassland restoration and the topic is especially important in Central and Eastern Europe where large areas of marginal croplands are being abandoned (Török et al ). Although spontaneous recovery was shown to be successful within a few decades in the region (Halassy ; Ruprecht 2006; Csecserits et al ; Albert et al ; Prach et al ; Valkó et al ), the quick start of restoration by sowing a number of selected target species can shorten this period (Kövendi‐Jakó et al ).…”

Long‐term effect of mowing on the restoration of Pannonian sand grassland to replace invasive black locust plantation

“…But if propagule limitation exists (e.g. Török et al 2018b; Halassy et al 2019), introduction of desired species is essential to accelerate the re‐establishment of grassland vegetation (Kiehl et al 2010; Kövendi‐Jakó et al 2019). In our case, the seed banks were dominated by ruderal species, only scarce occurrence of visibly viable seeds of sand grassland specialists was found (Halassy 2004).…”

Effect of seed storing duration and sowing year on the seedling establishment of grassland species in xeric environments

“…Natural and semi‐natural grasslands are threatened due to fragmentation by human land use and the intensification of agricultural production (Pereira et al 2012; Bond 2016; Török et al 2018a). There is a great need for ecological restoration, which should be scaled up to large areas and extended from agricultural and semi‐natural areas to urban and industrial sites to compensate for this large loss of natural areas (Aronson & Alexander 2013; Klaus 2013; Kövendi‐Jakó et al 2019). Spontaneous succession is often hindered by propagule limitation (Kiehl et al 2014; Török et al 2018b; Halassy et al 2019).…”