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How should the somewhat vague term of restoration success be measured? This is a critical question rooted in European law, where in fact the creation of proper replacement habitats is a prerequisite for permitting projects that trigger a loss of species or habitats. Previous studies have used indices that relied on a comparison to reference sites, for example the number of a predefined pool of target species or compositional similarity. However, since restoration sites have rarely the same biotic and abiotic conditions as reference sites, plant communities in restored sites will not perfectly match the reference sites. Furthermore, such indices fail when reference sites are lacking or degraded. Hence, there is a need for an alternative approach that evaluates the conservation value of a restored site independently from reference sites. We propose that naturalness indicator values can be an option to measure restoration success. The approach of using naturalness indicator values makes use of the fact that plants are able to indicate environmental parameters, including degradation and regeneration. We compared and measured the restoration success of three well-established methods for grassland restoration (sod transplantation, hay transfer, seeding) with three commonly used indices (diversity, number of target species, similarity to reference sites). The results verified earlier studies and showed that sod transplantation led to the highest restoration success followed by hay transfer and seeding of sitespecific seed mixtures. Further, we used those well-established indices for an evaluation of novel, naturalness-based indices (unweighted and cover-weighted mean naturalness indicator values, the sum of naturalness indicator values). While calculating the means of naturalness indicator values failed to offer conclusive information on restoration success, we could show that the sum of naturalness indicator values was highly correlated with the number of target species and compositional similarity to reference sites. Thus, our case study demonstrated that naturalness indices can be an excellent option to estimate success in grassland restoration. Abbreviations: CWMNN-Cover-weighted mean Naturalness indicator values, DSH-Donor site for hay transfer, DSS-Donor site for sod transplantation, FPFI-Frequency positive fidelity index (Tichý 2005), Simpson-Simpson´s Index, SUMNN-Sum of Naturalness indicator values, TGSpN-Number of target species, UWMNN-Unweighted Mean Naturalness indicator values. Naturalness indicators of grassland restoration 185 similar habitat conditions as compared to available reference sites and (b) are rather close to the reference sites (White and Walker 1997, Valkó et al. 2017).

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We investigated early spontaneous colonisation patterns during semi-dry grassland restoration at two sites in SE Austria. The sites were left to regenerate passively without addition of plant propagules on a former arable field and an apple orchard. The sites were prepared only by ploughing (arable field) or clear cutting (apple orchard) and subsequently mowed annually. We studied whether, four years after project initiation, target species from adjacent semi-dry grasslands had established at the restored sites. We asked: 1) Does passive restoration lead to the establishment of target species? 2) Do abiotic parameters or distance to reference sites explain early colonisation patterns? 3) Do plant traits predict the colonisation success of different species? At each site, we collected data in 4 m × 4 m plots, in which we sampled the vegetation, analysed abiotic parameters (soil potassium- and phosphorus-content, soil-pH, slope) and recorded the minimum distance to the reference site. We tested for correlations between abiotic variables, plant traits and colonisation success. Colonisation patterns were not driven by abiotic soil conditions but rather by nearest distance to the reference sites. In addition, the vegetation developed differently in the former arable field and the apple orchard. Competitive species of the Arrhenatherion and thermophilic ruderal associations dominated the early restoration stage at both sites. Passive restoration of semi-dry grasslands on former agricultural land is unlikely to succeed unless complemented by initial ploughing, nutrient stripping and addition of propagules of rare species.

Sulzer W., Gspurning J., Magnes M., Pink R., Muick M., Sengl P.: Biotope mapping of extensive/ intensive grassland supported by remote sensing and mobile GIS in Eastern Styria (Austria). Ekológia (Bratislava), Vol. 32, No. 4, p. 335-344, 2013.The paper presents a case study for the application of remote sensing data (ASTER, LAND SAT and RG B orthophotographs) and GIS and methods in the context of biotope/grassland mapping/ monitoring in the Province of Styria (Austria). The range of the applied case study covers the detection of extensive/intensive grassland by techniques of multi-temporal satellite and airborne classification for grassland detection. The methodologies of three topics are discussed in this paper: special intensive used grassland detection, the preparation of a field map, with pre-processed land use polygons, and the description of a conceptual approach for a mobile client/server GIS grassland management and monitoring support system. Although from the legal (Government of Styria) point of view these methodologies cannot be used for the specific biotope mapping purposes, the verified results are showing valuable additional information for the intensive mapping activity during the fieldwork and postprocessing.

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