Restoration of species‐rich grassland on arable land: assessing the limiting processes using a multi‐site experiment

Abstract

Summary 1.Agricultural intensification has resulted in the reduction and fragmentation of species-rich grasslands across much of western Europe. 2. We examined the key ecological processes that limit the creation of diverse grassland communities on ex-arable land in a multi-site experiment over a wide variety of soil types and locations throughout lowland Britain. 3. The results showed it was possible to create and maintain these communities successfully under a hay-cutting and grazing management regime. Furthermore, there was a high degree of repeatability of the treatment effects across the sites. 4. Lack of seed of desirable species was the key factor limiting the assembly of diverse grassland communities. Sowing a species-rich seed mixture of ecologically adapted grassland plants was an effective means of overcoming this limitation. Community assembly by natural colonization from the seed bank and seed rain was a slow and unreliable process. However, there was no evidence to suggest that sowing a species-poor grass-dominated seed mixture made the vegetation any less susceptible to colonization by desirable species than allowing natural regeneration to take place. 5. Deep cultivation caused significant reductions in soil P and K concentrations across the sites. This had a significant beneficial effect on the establishment and persistence of sown forbs in all years. It also resulted in a significant reduction in the number of unsown weedy grasses. However, for both variables these differences were very small after 4 years. 6. Sowing a nurse crop significantly reduced the number of unsown grass species, but had no beneficial effect on the establishment of desirable species. 7. Treatments sown with the species-rich seed mixture following deep cultivation corresponded most closely to the specified target communities defined by the UK National Vegetation Classification. Natural regeneration and treatments sown with the speciespoor seed mixture were much less similar to the target. The sites on circum-neutral soils achieved the greatest degree of similarity to the target. Those on calcareous and acid soils failed to achieve their targets and most closely resembled the target for neutral soils. This reflected the poor performance of the sown preferential species for these communities.

Identifying and prioritising services in European terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems

“…Mixed trends are shown for some services as their value considerably increased after the 1950s, but at the same time there was a dramatic decline in area. More recently, European agri-environment schemes encourage farmers to create species-rich grasslands on arable land (Pywell et al 2002) or agriculturally improved pastures (Pywell et al 2004) resulting in small local increases in the area of semi-natural grasslands.…”

Meeting the ecological challenges of agricultural change: editors’ introduction

“…Increasingly, papers published in the Journal of Applied Ecology address the restoration, remediation or repair of a wide range of ecosystem types that have been changed through exploitation (Ormerod 2003b). Many such studies apply directly to systems previously altered by agriculture; for example, where extensification has now become an aim, or where moves to encourage or maintain biodiversity within farmed systems have been driven by changing economics or policy ( Wolf et al 2001;Calladine et al 2002;Pywell et al 2002Pywell et al , 2003Middleton 2003;Pretty et al 2003;Smith et al 2002Smith et al , 2003. Across those areas of Europe and the world where agrienvironment schemes are developing, methods for restoring land after cultivation, for protecting adjacent systems such as wetlands, or for maintaining nature conservation interest during cultivation, must from here on respond to factors linked to GM and its associated new technologies.…”

Changes in botanical diversity of sown grasslands due to naturalization and extensive management

“…Grassland succession and restoration problems have been the concern of scientists from different countries of the world (Muller et al, 1998;Jones & Hayes, 1999;Pywell et al, 2002;Bakker et al, 2003;HellströM, 2004;wilson & Pärtel, 2003;lindBorg & eriksson, 2004;wilson et al, 2004;walker et al, 2004;HedBerg & kotowski, 2010;lencová & PracH, 2011;török et al, 2010Jírová, 2012, etc.). Because of the abandonment of traditional small-scale farming at the end of the 20 th century, the number of semi-natural grasslands has declined in many European countries (craMer et al, 2008).…”