Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment

Volume 128, Issue 3, November 2008, Pages 137-145

doi:10.1016/j.agee.2008.05.016 | How to Cite or Link Using DOI   Cited By in Scopus (7)

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Effects of grassland management on plant functional trait

composition

Stefanie Kahmena and Peter Poschlod , a,

a
Institute of Botany, Faculty of Biology and Preclinical Medicine, University Regensburg, D-93040 Regensburg, Germany
Received 2 August 2007; 
revised 18 May 2008; 
accepted 22 May 2008. 
Available online 23 July 2008.

Abstract
Semi-natural grasslands are threatened in Central Europe by intense fertilisation, afforestation or abandonment due
to changes in agricultural practice during the last decades. Nature conservation but also management within the EU
agri-environmental schemes (cross compliance with national good farming practices) seek to maintain these
grasslands by management. The study presented here investigated the effects of different management treatments
on grassland vegetation of various vegetation types. The treatments were low-intensity grazing, mulching once and
twice a year and burning in winter. We investigated plant functional trait responses to the treatments aiming to identify
dominant or differentiating processes of the treatments ruling trait responses. We assume that the processes
‘selective removal of the phytomass by grazing’, ‘small scale soil disturbances’, ‘treatment frequency’, ‘nutrient
conditions’, ‘vertical defoliation’ and ‘timing of the treatment’ are associated with the response of the plant functional
traits ‘life form’, ‘plant height’, ‘canopy structure’, ‘specific leaf area’, ‘storage organs’, ‘lateral spread’, ‘plant
persistence’, ‘seed bank longevity’, ‘start of flowering’, ‘duration of flowering’ and ‘seed mass’.
All treatments maintained grassland vegetation by regular phytomass removal with hemicryptophytes and perennials
with clonal growth being dominant. Grazing encouraged woody life forms through selective removal of the phytomass
and species with small seeds and persistent seed bank. A relation to soil disturbances was discussed. Mulching
treatments were especially characterised by increasing dominance of ground-layer species through regular vertical
defoliation close to the ground. Burning in winter benefited species with storage capacities for nutrients withdraw. The
traits ‘plant height’ and ‘SLA’, associated with treatment frequency and nutrient conditions, as well as the
phenological traits ‘start’ and ‘duration of flowering’, associated with the timing of the treatments, did not respond
differently among the treatments.
The study shows that the grasslands show a convergent response to management treatments from a functional point
of view although they may be floristically divergent. Therefore, a functional approach is useful not only to understand
the mechanisms behind changes in vegetation after applying certain management treatments but also to predict
changes.