Land use more than 200 years ago explains current grassland plant diversity in a Swedish agricultural landscape

Gustavsson, Eva; Lennartsson, Tommy; Emanuelsson, Marie

doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2007.04.004

Cited by 205 publications

(170 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…Uppsala have houses dating from 1280 A.D.) some of the present lawns may have been pastures or meadows for much longer than 50 years. The continuity of lawns as grasslands is important to biodiversity since they may have older seedbanks (Gustavsson et al 2007), e.g., historic urban parks in Berlin have high species richness due to their habitat continuity (Fischer et al 2013;Maurer et al 2000). Thompson et al (2004) found that lawns in cities had relatively well-defined plant communities with a species pool comparable in size to that of semi-natural grasslands.…”

Section: Continuity Of Lawnsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Estimating urban lawn cover in space and time: Case studies in three Swedish cities

et al. 2017

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Lawns are considered monocultures and lesser contributors to sustainability than diverse nature but are still a dominating green area feature and an important cultural phenomenon in cities. Lawns have esthetical values, provide playground, are potential habitat for species, contribute to carbon sequestration and water infiltration, but also increase pesticides, fertilization, are monocultures and costly to manage at the same time. To evaluate the potential impact of lawns, whether positive or negative, it is of interest to estimate the total lawn cover in cities and its change over time. This is not a straightforward process, e.g., because many lawns are small and covered by trees. In this study we review the existing literature of lawn cover in cities and the different methodologies used for cover estimation. We found both pros and cons with NDVI and LiDAR data as well as manually interpreted aerial photos. The total cover of lawns in three case study cities was estimated to 22.5%. By extrapolating these percentages to all Swedish cities lawn cover was estimated to 2589 km 2 (0.6% of the terrestrial surface). The approximated total municipal management cost of lawns in all Swedish cities was 910,000,000 USD/ year. During 50 years lawn area almost doubled in relative cover and 56% of them were continuously managed. Since lawns constitute large parts of the urban greenery and are costly to manage it is highly relevant to consider their social, ecological and cultural value compared to alternatives, e.g., meadows with less intensive management.

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Section: Continuity Of Lawnsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Estimating urban lawn cover in space and time: Case studies in three Swedish cities

et al. 2017

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“…Environmental and socioeconomic drivers have been associated with PMM: for example, in a study of marginal agricultural landscapes in Portugal (Van Doorn and Bakker, 2007), and a study of farmland abandonment in eastern China (Wu and Zhang, 2012). A study of a Swedish agricultural landscape (Gustavsson et al, 2007) shows how changes in management from mowing to grazing a century ago may cause diversity declines similar to abandonment that occurred 40 years ago. In this context, Benjamin et al (2005) notes that changes in intensity of land-use contribute to a large range of habitat modifications, plant community fragmentation and changes in landscape structure.…”

Section: Theoretical Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analysis of the development of land use in the Morava River floodplain, with special emphasis on the landscape matrix

Kilianová

Pechanec

Brus

et al. 2017

Moravian Geographical Reports

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“…Piessens and Hermy (2006) suggested that a low species loss rate in highly fragmented north Belgium heathlands may be the result of an extinction debt, but provided no direct test for this hypothesis. However, some studies in semi-natural grasslands have reported evidence of an extinction debt (Gustavsson et al, 2007;Helm et al, 2006) but other studies have not provided supporting data (Adriaens et al, 2006).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This temporal distance between fragmentation (cause) and extinction (effect) may lead to an erroneous evaluation of species sensitivity to habitat fragmentation (Adriaens et al, 2006;Gustavsson et al, 2007;Helm et al, 2006;Lindborg and Eriksson, 2004). Although our target habitats are of high conservation value in Europe, no study has explicitly tested for an extinction debt in the plant communities they host.…”

Section: Evidence Of An Extinction Debtmentioning

confidence: 99%

Historical landscape structure affects plant species richness in wet heathlands with complex landscape dynamics

Cristofoli

Monty

Mahy

2010

Landscape and Urban Planning

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a b s t r a c tThe spatio-temporal dynamics of wet heathlands from two landscapes in high Ardenne (Belgium), as well as the consequences of such dynamics on plant communities were investigated. Past and present destruction and origin of habitat patches have resulted in a complex network of different aged habitat patches. Current specialist and generalist species richness were assessed in 59 patches and analyzed with respect to present and past patch spatial metrics (controlled for habitat quality). Current patch area affected specialist species richness and current patch connectivity influenced both specialist and generalist species richness. Thirteen of the 59 patches were historical patches, i.e. patches that have remained since the 1770s. In these historical patches, including past landscape structure in the analysis explained more of the variability in current species richness than the current landscape structure alone, suggesting the existence of an extinction debt.

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Land use more than 200 years ago explains current grassland plant diversity in a Swedish agricultural landscape

Cited by 205 publications

References 46 publications

Estimating urban lawn cover in space and time: Case studies in three Swedish cities

Estimating urban lawn cover in space and time: Case studies in three Swedish cities

Analysis of the development of land use in the Morava River floodplain, with special emphasis on the landscape matrix

Historical landscape structure affects plant species richness in wet heathlands with complex landscape dynamics

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