Abstract
Traditionally managed mountain grasslands are declining as a result of abandonment or intensification of management. Based on a common chronosequence approach we investigated species compositions of 16 taxonomic groups on traditionally managed dry pastures, fertilized and irrigated hay meadows, and abandoned grasslands (larch forests). We included faunal above- and below-ground biodiversity as well as species traits (mainly rarity and habitat specificity) in our analyses. The larch forests showed the highest species number (345 species), with slightly less species in pastures (290 species) and much less in hay meadows (163 species). The proportion of rare species was highest in the pastures and lowest in hay meadows. Similar patterns were found for specialist species, i.e. species with a high habitat specificity. After abandonment, larch forests harbor a higher number of pasture species than hay meadows. These overall trends were mainly supported by spiders and vascular plants. Lichens, bryophytes and carabid beetles showed partly contrasting trends. These findings stress the importance to include a wide range of taxonomic groups in conservation studies. All in all, both abandonment and intensification had similar negative impacts on biodiversity in our study, underlining the high conservation value of Inner-Alpine dry pastures.
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29 May 2019
In the original publication of the article, Figure 2 was published without the labels. The corrected figure and figure legend are provided in this Correction.
29 May 2019
In the original publication of the article, Figure 2 was published without the labels. The corrected figure and figure legend are provided in this Correction.
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Acknowledgements
For their help in organizing field campaigns, we thank Thomas Wilhalm, Michele Torresani, Alessandro Zandonai, Stefano Della Chiesa, the municipality of Mals/Malles and the village community of Matsch/Mazia. We acknowledge the Museum of Nature South Tyrol in Bozen/Bolzano for data base consultation. This study was conducted at the LTSER platform LTER_EU_IT_097 - Val Mazia/Matschertal, member of the national and international long term ecological research networks (LTER-Italy, LTER Europe and ILTER). The presented work was made possible by the funding of the Province of Bozen/Bolzano - South Tyrol for the LTSER platform. Finally, we thank Rachele Carloni for drawing cliparts of plants and animals.
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Communicated by Dirk Sven Schmeller.
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Hilpold, A., Seeber, J., Fontana, V. et al. Decline of rare and specialist species across multiple taxonomic groups after grassland intensification and abandonment. Biodivers Conserv 27, 3729–3744 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-018-1623-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-018-1623-x