One Century of Change: Stronger Diversity Decline in Lowland Than in Mountain Grasslands in Central Europe.

ABSTRACT: Quantitative long-term assessments of the extent and direction of biodiversity change due to anthropogenic environmental change are challenging because representative baseline data older than a few decades are very rare. This is also the case for grasslands in temperate Europe, which can harbour high species diversity at small spatial scales, but have undergone strong and varied changes, particularly in relation to the agricultural intensification that peaked in the middle of the last century. We resampled 416 historical vegetation records (originally sampled between 1884 and 1931) of 0.09 m² from grasslands across Switzerland at a wide range of elevations (300-2500 m) and moisture levels to assess the changes in taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity, as well as comm

SUBMITTER: Widmer S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12492779 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature