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Establishment and persistence of target species in newly created calcareous grasslands on former arable fields

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Abstract

The effects of different restoration measures and management variants on the vegetation development of newly created calcareous grasslands were studied in southern Germany from 1993 to 2002. In 1993, fresh seed-containing hay from a nature reserve with ancient calcareous grasslands was transferred onto ex-arable fields with and without topsoil removal. Nine years after start of the restoration, the standing crop was lower and the cover of bare soil was higher on topsoil-removal sites than on sites without soil removal. Topsoil removal had a positive effect on the proportion of target species (class Festuco-Brometea), because the number and cover of productive meadow species (class Molinio-Arrhenatheretea) were reduced. Persistence of hay-transfer species and the number of newly colonizing target species were highest on topsoil-removal sites. On plots with and without soil removal, species richness and the number of target species increased quickly after hay transfer and were always higher on hay-transfer plots than on plots that had not received hay in 1993. In 2002, differences induced by hay transfer were still much more pronounced than differences between management regimes. Management by mowing, however, led to higher species richness, a greater number of target species and a lower number of ruderals in comparison to no management on restoration fields without soil removal. A detrended correspondence analysis (DCA) indicated that vegetation composition of the hay-transfer plots of the restoration fields still differed from the vegetation of ancient grasslands in the nature reserve. Vegetation of an ex-arable field in the nature reserve (last ploughed in 1959) showed an intermediate successional stage. In general our results indicate that the transfer of autochthonous hay is an efficient method for the restoration of species-rich vegetation, which allows not only quick establishment but also long-term persistence of target species.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Annuschka Thormann, Ulrich Miller and Klaus Wiesinger for data collection on the restoration fields and to Daniela Röder who provided vegetation relevés from the nature reserve Garchinger Heide. We thank Valerio De Patta Pillar for his advice concerning the randomisation tests and Christine Joas from “Heideflächenverein Münchner Norden e.V.” for the organisation and technical supervision of the restoration measures and management of the restoration fields. Jan P. Bakker, Thierry Dutoit and one anonymous referee gave helpful comments on an earlier version of the manuscript. Rachel Schultz corrected the English and Ingrid Kapps prepared the map. This study was supported by the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation and the German Ministry of Environment.

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Correspondence to Kathrin Kiehl.

Appendix

Appendix

Table 5 Frequency of phanerogam species on restoration fields with and without hay in 2002. Target species are marked in bold. Species detected outside permanent plots during the assessment of total species richness in 2001 are marked by an x. Scores are frequency classes after Braun-Blanquet (1964) from I (1–20%) to V (80–100%)
Table 6 Effects of topsoil removal (with, without) and hay transfer variants (with hay, without hay, reference site) on standing crop and cover of phanerogams, cryptogams, litter, and bare soil in 2002. Data represent probabilities (P(Q b oQ b)) computed by a two-factorial analysis of variance with randomisation testing (Pillar and Orloci 1996; Pillar 2004). P-values were calculated by 10,000 iterations taking into account the block factor. Significant P-values are marked in bold
Table 7 Effects of topsoil removal (with, without) and hay-transfer variants (with hay, without hay, reference site) on species richness and the number and cover of target species, Molinio-Arrhenatheretea species, and ruderals in 2002. Data represent probabilities (P (Q b oQ b)) computed by a two-factorial analysis of variance with randomisation testing (Pillar and Orloci 1996; Pillar 2004). P-values were calculated by 10,000 iterations taking into account the block factor. Significant P-values are marked in bold
Table 8 Effects of hay transfer (with hay, without hay) and management (no management, mowing once, mowing twice, mulching) on species richness and the number and cover of target species, Molinio-Arrhenatheretea species, and ruderals in 2002 on restoration fields RF 506 and RF 508 (without soil removal). Data represent probabilities (P␣(Q b oQ b)) computed by a two-factorial analysis of variance with randomisation testing (Pillar and Orloci 1996; Pillar 2004). P-values were calculated by 10,000 iterations taking into account the block factor. Significant P-values are marked in bold

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Kiehl, K., Pfadenhauer, J. Establishment and persistence of target species in newly created calcareous grasslands on former arable fields. Plant Ecol 189, 31–48 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11258-006-9164-x

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