Direct and indirect effects of land-use intensity on plant communities across elevation in semi-natural grasslands.

ABSTRACT: Grassland biodiversity is vulnerable to land use change. How to best manage semi-natural grasslands for maintaining biodiversity is still unclear in many cases because land-use processes may depend on environmental conditions and the indirect effects of land-use on biodiversity mediated by altered abiotic and biotic factors are rarely considered. Here we evaluate the relative importance of the direct and indirect effects of grazing intensity on plant communities along an elevational gradient on a large topographic scale in the Eastern Carpathians in Ukraine. We sampled for two years 31 semi-natural grasslands exposed to cattle grazing. Within each grassland site we measured plant community properties such as the number of species, functional groups, and the proportion of species undesirabl

SUBMITTER: Buzhdygan OY 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7685434 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature