Kelemen et al. (2015) Preslia

Kelemen, A., Lazzaro, L., Besnyői, V., Albert, Á-J., Konečná, M., Dobay, G., Memelink, I., Adamec, V., Götzenberger, L., de Bello, F., Le Bagousse-Pinguet, Y., Lepš J. (2015): Net outcome of competition and facilitation in a wet meadow changes with plant’s life stage and community productivity. Preslia 87: 347–361.


Abstract
Positive and negative plant-plant interactions generally co-occur in communities but their relative importance should depend on site productivity; the importance of facilitation is expected to increase and that of competition to decrease with the adversity of the environment. Moreover the effect of surrounding vegetation on an individual’s performance can vary depending on the individual’s life stage and on the variables used to characterize an individual’s performance. To test these theories, we established a transplant experiment in a wet meadow in order to assess the effects of surrounding vegetation on individual plants under varying environmental conditions and changes in these effects during an individual’s development within one growing season. We asked whether (i) the net effects of plant interactions differ with differences in productivity and disturbance, and (ii) the net effects of interactions differ according to life stage, species and the performance measure used. We utilized a long-term experiment with three treatments (application of fertilizer, mowing and removal of the dominant species) in a full factorial design, yielding eight combinations, with three replicate plots per combination. In each plot four individuals of three species (Lysimachia vulgaris, Prunella vulgaris and Plantago lanceolata) were transplanted, two into gaps and two into intact vegetation. Survival (alive/dead) of each individual was recorded twice during the season. The presence of flowers and above- and below-ground biomass were recorded at the end of the transplant experiment. The survival of transplants early in the season was higher when growing among vegetation, indicating that at an early stage in its life the net effect of the surrounding vegetation was positive. At later stages, competition became more important and had a negative effect on biomass production and plant reproduction. This negative effect was more pronounced in fertilized plots while the effect of mowing and removal of dominant species on plant interactions was generally negligible. Our results indicate, particularly under more productive conditions, the importance of changes in the net outcome of plant interactions during different life stages, highlighting the dynamic nature of positive and negative interactions within a community.

Keywords

above-ground biomass, disturbance, fertilization, Molinia removal, mowing, neighbour-effect, ontogenetic shift, plant-plant interactions, root-shoot ratio, survival

Valkó et al. (2013) Basic and Applied Ecology

Orsolya Valkó, Péter Török, Balázs Deák, Béla Tóthmérész (2013): Prospects and limitations of prescribed burning as a management tool in European grasslands. Basic and Applied Ecology, in press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.baae.2013.11.002


Abstract
Grassland managers and scientists are increasingly interested in cost-effective alternative ways of grassland biodiversity conservation. Prescribed burning is a promising management tool which should be integrated in the planning of management efforts. In addition, small-scale prescribed burning is an effective fire suppression strategy to decrease the serious negative impacts of uncontrolled burnings on ecosystems and human life. Prescribed burning forms an integral part of the North-American grassland management practice, while in Europe it is rarely applied, despite the fact that uncontrolled burning occurs frequently in some regions. Our goal was to evaluate the use of prescribed burning as a promising but neglected management tool in European grasslands. We found that European studies on prescribed burning of grasslands are scarce and we conclude that annual burning is usually not an appropriate option for the conservation of species-rich grasslands. We reviewed burning studies from North-America to identify findings which might be adapted to the European grassland conservation strategy. In North-America, contrary to Europe, the application of burning is fine tuned in terms of frequency and timing, and usually combined with other restoration measures (grazing or seed sowing). Thus, we conclude that with the application of carefully designed prescribed burning, multiple conservation goals, e.g. invasion control and enhancing landscape-level heterogeneity, can be linked with an effective fire suppression strategy. We emphasize that for the application of prescribed burning in Europe, the general findings of carefully designed case studies should be combined with the practical knowledge of conservation managers concerning the local application circumstances to reach specific management objectives.


Keywords
Biomass, Ecosystem services, Fire, Grazing, Mowing, Prairie

Pal et al. (2013) Folia Geobotanica

Robert W. Pal, Sándor Csete, Zoltán Botta-Dukát, Gyula Pinke (2013): Composition and Diversity of Lawn Flora in Differently Managed Village Yards – A Case Study from Southwestern Hungary. Folia Geobotanica, DOI 10.1007/s12224-012-9142-0

Abstract
Traditionally managed village yards have been disappearing from the Central-European countryside. Their lawn flora is likely to provide a unique habitat for many plants that are adapted to this environment. Composition of lawn flora was investigated in differently managed village yards (i.e., regularly mown and regularly trampled yards, poultry yards, paved yards) in southwestern Hungary. The main goal of the study was to detect the impacts of these different management regimes on the composition and diversity of the vegetation. In total, 240 1-m2 plots were sampled in 60 yards ranging from 80 m2 to 5,000 m2 in size. In the redundancy analysis, eight significant variables (degree of southness, slope, age, total size of yards; mowing, trampling and grazing regime; and the number of dogs) explained 16 % of the total variation in species data. The most diverse flora across yards was detected in the paved ones, and their stands also proved to be the most compositionally distinctive. In contrast, presence of domestic animals can contribute to local species loss as well as to a decrease in within-yard-type variability. These results highlight the importance of certain anthropogenic disturbances in maintaining high plant diversity, but also underline the crucial role of small-scale land management practices in rural environments.


Keywords
Anthropogenic disturbance, Grazing, Mowing, Ruderal vegetation, Trampling