Diversity of lowland hay meadows and pastures in Western and Central Europe

Abstract

Questions Which are the main vegetation types of lowland hay meadows and pastures in Western and Central Europe? What are the main environmental gradients that drive patterns of species composition? Is it possible to classify these grasslands to phytosociological alliances that reflect management practices? Location Western and Central Europe (excluding the Alps and Carpathians). Methods A database of 21 400 vegetation plots of mesic grasslands across Western and Central Europe was compiled. After geographically stratified resampling, semi‐supervised classification based on the K‐means algorithm was applied to assign a subset of plots into 32 a priori association‐level vegetation types and to search for new types within the subset of non‐assigned plots. The vegetation plots assigned into the final vegetation types were submitted to another K‐means classification to show the grouping into higher‐level vegetation types. Results A total of 36 associations were distinguished in the resampled subset of 8277 vegetation plots and were grouped into four large groups: (1) eutrophic and intensively managed hay meadows and permanent pastures; (2) nutrient‐rich grasslands developed from recently abandoned fields or managed under irregular practices of mowing and manuring; (3) non‐eutrophic lowland and submontane hay meadows; (4) extensively managed pastures and Atlantic grazed hay meadows. A PCoA of the associations of these four groups showed that extensively managed pastures were floristically more similar to non‐eutrophic hay meadows than to permanent intensively managed pastures, which was more obvious in the Atlantic region than in Central Europe. Species composition of the lowland hay meadows was clearly differentiated according to biogeographic sectors. Other floristic differences were related to climate, altitude, soil base status and topography. Conclusions This analysis challenges the traditional concept of mesic grassland alliances separating hay meadows from pastures. New classification should be based mainly on the differences in management intensity rather than in management practice. Consequently, nutrient‐poor extensive pastures, which currently are not considered in the European Habitats Directive, should receive the same conservation attention as low‐intensive hay meadows, because both types of vegetation can be equally species‐rich and do not differ substantially in floristic composition from each other.

Environment or management? Relative importance for floristic composition of sub‐Mediterranean hay meadows in Central Italy

“…However, traits and taxonomic diversity may respond differently to changes in management, and their relationship is likely to be determined by the size of the local species pool, productivity of the system, and type of disturbance (Mayfield et al., ). A recent study showed that floristic composition of hay meadows in Western and Central Europe differed more in relation to management intensity than type (Rodríguez‐Rojo et al., ). Moreover, we need to consider that species diversity and composition are filtered in a hierarchical way (Catorci & Gatti, ) with the effects of local processes, such as management, driving plant–plant interaction and competition.…”

“…Many studies have shown the importance of management type and intensity in maintaining or modifying plant species richness and composition in grasslands (e.g Marini, Scotton, Klimek, Isselstein, & Pecile, ; Marini, Scotton, Klimek, & Pecile, ; Catorci, Cesaretti, Malatesta, & Tardella, ; Bonari et al., ; Rodríguez‐Rojo et al., ). On the other hand, other variables influence floristic composition, biodiversity and agronomic value of hay meadows: soil characteristics (Angiolini, Riccucci, & De Dominicis, ; Marini et al., ), topography‐related environmental factors (Bennie, Hill, Baxter, & Huntley, ; Gusmeroli et al., ), climatic (Herben, Krahulec, Hadincová, Pecháčková, & Wildová, ) and spatial factors (Di Giulio, Edwards, & Meister, ).…”

Recursive Feature Elimination and Random Forest Classification of Meadows and Dry Grasslands in Lowland River Valleys of Poland Based on Airborne Hyperspectral and LiDAR Data Fusion

“…Lowland hay meadows are semi-natural communities where hay is most often obtained twice. They originated on fertile mineral soils (with a high share of silt or clays), in various morphological conditions and due to long-term not intensive agricultural use as mesic hay meadows [5,82]. They are composed of plant communities which often arise in river valleys usually outside the floodplain, on upper terraces where floods and inundation do not occur [83].…”

“…Their location in Poland is well known in Natura 2000 areas, but poorly recognized outside protected areas. Lowland mesic meadows are one of the richest species meadow habitats, very valuable particularly due to invertebrates, but also at high risk of transformation into arable land [82]. The community is characterized by high variability in terms of species composition (Galium mollugo, Campanula patula, Knautia arvensis, Rumex thyrsiflorus) as well as physiognomy [82]; to a small extent the community shows geographical variability.…”

Making them visible and usable — vegetation‐plot observations from Fennoscandia based on historical species‐quantity scales

“…of geographic patterns and main driving factors of species composition (Rodríguez-Rojo et al, 2017;Willner et al, 2017Willner et al, , 2019Marcenò et al, 2018). Vegetation classification studies have played a major role in the development of transnational European habitat typologies (Schaminée et al, 2016;Rodwell, Evans & Schaminée, 2018;Biurrun, Bergmeier, Dengler, Jansen & Willner, 2019) and their quality assessment Tsiripidis, Xystrakis, Kallimanis, Panitsa & Dimopoulos, 2018), which is an important basis for decision-making processes in nature conservation.…”