Disruption of traditional land use regimes causes an economic loss of provisioning services in high-mountain grasslands

Disruption of Traditional Grazing and Fire Regimes Shape the Fungal Endophyte Assemblages of the Tall-Grass Brachypodium rupestre

“…Where an appropriate extensive summer grazing exists, grasslands constitute highdiversity communities that are burned every 6-7 years by the bush-to-bush traditional practice to control localized shrub resprouting (San Emeterio et al, 2016). However, in the last decades, the number of grazers has sharply declined due to socioeconomical changes experienced in the valleys, and the use of repeated winter burnings to control the build-up of ungrazed biomass has increased (Durán et al, 2020). Nowadays, many areas are burned recurrently, every 1-2 years (Canals et al, 2017).…”

“…Based on the cartographic information provided by the Management Plan of the area (Ferrer and Canals, 2008), we selected six grassland communities where B. rupestre was present at different coverages: three areas had above 75% cover and three areas under 25% cover (Table 1 and Figure 1). The detailed floristic communities of the area are available in Durán et al, 2020. At each location, 40 turfs (400 cm 3 ) of B. rupestre (including shoots, rhizomes, roots and rhizosphere) were collected in summer 2018. We established a distance of ca 30 m among collected plants to avoid clonal individuals (Baba et al, 2012).…”

Horse meat production in northern Spain: ecosystem services and sustainability in High Nature Value farmland

“…That is why new efforts are being carried out to valorize and promote the extensive production system itself, as well as the final product (horse meat), based on its important role in the sustainable development of mountain areas at economic, environmental, and social levels (i.e., the European project Open2preserve, https://open2preserve.eu/en/ ). Anyway, giving a monetary value to these externalities is a challenge, and many attempts of measurable criteria for the valuation of the ecosystem services provided by pasture-based farming systems are being developed in the last years to that purpose ( Bernués et al, 2014 ; Rodríguez-Ortega et al, 2014 ; Maldonado et al, 2019 ; Durán et al, 2020 ).…”

“…In most mountain regions of Europe, the rural exodus and the abandonment of the traditional practices have led to deep changes in the landscape, decreasing the characteristic mosaicism and the diversity of inherited ecosystems ( Martínez-Fernández et al, 2015 ; Múñoz-Ulecia et al, 2021 ). As a consequence, many ecosystem services are being affected, such as the biodiversity, the carbon sequestration, and the provisioning value of food for herbivores, among others ( Durán et al, 2020 ; Oggioni et al, 2020 ). In addition, the current situation of climate change seriously aggravates the problem of land abandonment, especially in areas of high plant productivity.…”

Comparison of Culturing and Metabarcoding Methods to Describe the Fungal Endophytic Assemblage of Brachypodium rupestre Growing in a Range of Anthropized Disturbance Regimes

“…The genus Brachypodium encompasses several perennial tall grasses, native to European calcareous grasslands, which have been expanding aggressively in the last decades due to the global change conditions ( B. pinnatum , B. genuense and B. rupestre) [ 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 ]. This tall grass expansion causes a decline of the biodiversity of the natural grasslands and also has an impact on the ecosystem service of provisioning [ 26 ]. The competitive strategies of this group of species that explain the expansive process is a matter of interest [ 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 ], as it is the study of the mycobiome that may help to understand these advantages.…”