Research questions
We aim to answer the following research questions:(1) Who are the stakeholders that operate in grassland management and protection? (2) Where are species-rich grasslands located across the Alps and the Carpathians? (3) Which grassland management regimes effectively support grassland plant diversity, how do they vary across regions and what are their legacy effects? (4) Where can we potentially extend the conservation area network in the Alps and Carpathians to maintain the, so far unprotected, biodiversity-rich grasslands? (5) How can we optimise grassland management to support biodiversity in protected areas?
To address these research questions, we designed five work packages devoted to: cooperation with the stakeholders (WP1); harmonising and identifying appropriate data for grassland biodiversity assessments (WP2); identifying the drivers of grassland biodiversity (WP3); modelling grassland biodiversity (WP4); and defining the conservation framework of grassland biodiversity (WP5) (Fig. 2).
Scientific objectives
Objective 1: Identify biodiversity-rich grasslands in the Alps and the Carpathians (WP1, WP2, WP4)Link existing spatially-explicit botanical samples and information from remote sensing sensors to identify the spatial and spectral responses of the biodiversity-rich grasslands in the Alps and the Carpathians.
Objective 2: Identify the biodiversity-supporting grassland management practices and regimes (WP1, WP2, WP3)Link spatially-explicit data with questionnaires and interviews with farmers and stakeholders, to identify biodiversity-supporting grassland management regimes and their legacies. Using the questionnaires and interviews we will also identify the farmers’ constraints and motivations for the biodiversity-supporting grassland management.
Objective 3: Identify the areas suitable for expansion of the grassland protection network in the Alps and the Carpathians (WP1, WP3, WP4)Model the grassland biodiversity across the Alps and the Carpathians and compare modelled results with the existing protection network to identify possible grasslands diversity hotspots lacking legislative protection.
Objective 4: Propose new protection areas and their management across the Alps and the Carpathians (WP1, WP4, WP5)Consider stakeholders’ needs and mindset in order to facilitate the establishment of new grassland protected sites in the Alps and the Carpathians and design and implement grassland management schemes that boost biodiversity.
Semi-natural grasslands, which are among the most species-rich habitats in Europe, have sharply declined in spatial extent and biodiversity in recent decades mostly due to both intensification and abandonment of agricultural activities. As declared by the European Environmental Agency, despite high conservation value, many of the remaining biodiversity-rich grasslands are either insufficiently or not at all protected [1]. Further, the protection status of biodiversity-rich grassland areas does not always prevent biodiversity loss [1,2]. In many protected areas biodiversity continues to decline even when areas are enlarged [3]. The reasons for decline of grassland biodiversity in protected areas include: human interventions such as changes in land-use intensity (e.g., abandonment of agricultural activities) within the protected areas or their hinterland, modified ecological processes (affecting species regeneration) operating predominantly at the landscape level, and insufficient measures of the effects of management on habitat quality [4]. For example, a large share of the financial support for grassland management goes to grassland mowing (within and outside the protected areas) without appropriate guidelines on its timing and further use of the plant mass. As an outcome, large-scale grassland mulching became a standard management practice (for reporting of management efforts) in some EU countries despite the fact that these activities may significantly reduce species richness [5]. Overall, the major impediment to preserving biodiversity-rich grasslands is the limited knowledge about their spatial distribution outside of the protected areas and the natural and human mediated drivers that determine their distribution.
The proposed project will provide the first assessment of Europe-wide richness of mountain grasslands and identify both natural conditions and management activities that influence their location.We aim to provide sound knowledge necessary to expand the grassland protection network by identifying biodiversity-rich grasslands in the Alps and the Carpathians.
Studying both mountain ranges is a unique opportunity to gain new insights on the distribution and drivers of grassland biodiversity for two main reasons. First, the Alps and Carpathians are the largest mountain ranges in Europe and host a wide variety of grassland habitats. Both mountain ranges harbour biodiversity hotspots and have good coverage of spatial data and vegetation relevés with relevant ecological information that will allow us to identify patterns of grassland diversity. Second, the Alps and Carpathians cover a wide range of different countries, agricultural policies, climate zones, cultures and current and historical management practices. Considering this variability is important as knowledge on grassland diversity alone is insufficient for maintaining their protection. Besides natural conditions, grassland biodiversity is largely driven by management regimes that are composed of a specific set of management practices applied in grassland areas at a certain time and sequence. For robust conservation outcomes a local and intimate understanding of these regimes (current and historical) is necessary, but is generally missing in fieldwork records and is not considered in protective measures and large-scale policy assessments [6-10]. Including the knowledge on the diversity-supporting grassland management regimes and their legacies into protective measures and policies may substantially increase the effectiveness of efforts to protect grassland biodiversity.
In the proposed project we aim to identify drivers of local and regional grassland biodiversity by evaluating location-specific information about diversity-supporting grassland management regimes, their legacies, interactions, drivers and constraints. For this purpose we will interact with stakeholders including farmers and obtain ground-truth samples describing management regimes and multitemporal earth observation (EO) data (satellite and aerial imagery, maps, climate, soils, terrain) (Fig.1). This information will be further used together with the EO data to predict the grassland diversity and management regimes over the whole mountain ranges.
There is largely unexplored potential in mapping biodiversity-rich grasslands and their management regimes using EO data. Recently, the availability of EO data has substantially increased in volume, spatial and temporal scales. Data include archives of remote sensing imagery, such as Landsat or Sentinel collections, aerial imagery and historical spy satellite missions, derived mapping products (e.g., Copernicus Land products), climate data, cadastral products and historical maps. We will also benefit from online databases of vegetation relevés (eg., GBIF or GIFT databases [11]) and ground-truth information describing management regimes (collected during previous field work campaigns [10]) to develop a model of the management schemes such as mowing, fertilisation, grazing, silage and hay production [12]. This model will allow us to assess management activities that support biodiversity, such as infrequent mowing,low intensity grazing and early fertilisation and form recommendations across the wider landscape [13,14]. Using the model outcomes in cooperation with the stakeholders, we will identify the challenges and opportunities to adjust the management regimes in mountain grasslands towards securing and enhancing their biodiversity and extending their protection network.