The European temperate forest zone has great importance, in terms of maintaining the habitats of not only forests but also anthropogenous grasslands, which were formed as a result of habitat reconstruction. These habitats have great importance, by means of nature conservation, landscape use, economy, and forest and grassland use. The mosaic-like habitat complexes that consist of these grasslands and forest patches help to increase biodiversity and supply the habitat for forest game. In this survey, changes in the vegetation of the temperate forests (Fagetum) of the Mátra Mountains of Hungary were investigated after reconstruction. In 2012, shrub cutting was carried out in the area of Parádóhuta, and then three different management methods (abandoning, mowing, and grazing) were utilized. Our goals were the following: to perform a vegetation survey of the sample areas (i); surveying the natural regeneration of the grassland and analyzing its biodiversity, nature conservation, and economical value (ii); and analyzing the vegetation in terms of nature conservation and valuing its life form spectrum, economy values, and livestock-feeding ability (iii). According to our results, systematic mowing and a less-intensive grazing had a significantly positive effect on biodiversity and the coverage of species, thus increasing the naturalness of the studied grassland habitats, while wild game were able to act as ecological engineers.
The present study focuses on the mosaic-like occurrences of patches of steppes and fore-steppes in the Pannonian forest-steppe zone. We present the current vegetation, which is maintained including by human landscape use, i.e., grazing and mowing. The area is complex and for this reason it shows the changes in the landscape and differences in the vegetation more diversely. We wanted to answer the questions: Do sand steppes and forest-steppes occur in the Ipoly Valley and what location? What kind of environmental effects influence the species composition on these areas? Besides classic habitat mapping, are the satellite data from Sentinel-2A useful for distinction of different areas? Comparison of vegetation patches was based on the Hungarian habitat classification system (ÁNÉR). Based on satellite images, quantile data of the Normalized Vegetation Index (NDVI) were used for comparison. Based on the result, water bodies and urban areas are clearly distinguishable from other natural habitats. In some natural vegetation types, we found visible differences, such as grasslands, i.e., sandy steppe meadows and shrubby, woody vegetation patches. Sandy vegetation mainly grows on calcareous soils, which appear to be mosaic-like in the landscape on raised alluvials on the patches of past islands and reefs. From open to continuous closed grasslands, these vegetation types mainly grow on lithosoils. New occurrences of Pannonian sandy vegetation were discovered. In the sandy areas along the Ipoly Valley, open sandy grasslands were found, which is where the northernmost known occurrences of this vegetation type are. Besides common sandy grassland species, the vegetation also contains herbs that are typical in loess-grasslands and it is maintained by grazing, similarly to the eastern Pannonian area. This type of grazing can be useful when maintaining the mosaic-like appearance and diversity of the vegetation.
The Ipoly Valley is a natural habitat along the Ipoly River, only slightly affected by water management; therefore, this is an especially sensitive area and reflects well the vegetation changes in the driest (2020) and wettest (2010) years. The study’s aim is to identify natural changes within habitats and the evaluation of habitat types’ boundaries. For the study, a hand-held GPS device was applied on-site. The habitat identification is based on the General National Habitat Classification System (Á-NÉR). In addition to on-site data, Sentinel-2A satellite data were used to compare different extreme years 2020 and 2021—changes in different habitat patches using different vegetation indices. A change in precipitation causes shifts in the vegetation, this is shown on a map. As we predicted, decreasing the precipitation results in a decrease of the area of wet habitat patches. The satellite image shows a more accurate picture of the real location of the associations, which is important for long-term research. In addition, we can get accurate data on the situation of areas (roads and paths) affected by anthropogenic factors.
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