It is based on pairwise distances across the entire time series, which are regressed against the time lag interval with the rate of change given by the slope of this relationship. Coefficient of conservatism is a measure of plant fidelity to specific habitats and plant tolerance to disturbance and it separates ubiquitous species (low coefficient of conservatism) from habitat specialists (high coefficient of conservatism). We used the classification proposed by Mortellaro et al. (2012) organized on a 1–10 scale and attributed a zero value to nonnative invasive species.
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- Consequently, urine patches on swards may contain greater nutrient concentrations (Forbes and Hodgson, 1985; Scheile et al., 2018).
- In SNP wetlands, these were P. hemitomon, Rhynchospora inundata (Oakes) Fernald, C.
- In fact, cattle exclusion increased the abundance of highly clonal and palatable nonnative grass species (H. altissima, H. amplexicaulis).
- Coefficient of conservatism is a measure of plant fidelity to specific habitats and plant tolerance to disturbance and it separates ubiquitous species (low coefficient of conservatism) from habitat specialists (high coefficient of conservatism).
- Conversion to improved pastures led to a decrease of native plant diversity and increase in nonnative species diversity in embedded wetlands, highlighting the importance of not converting SNPs to IMPs.
- In that year, herbage from sheep paddocks contained more ADF on div-swards but less on gd-swards.
Many experiments on sown grasslands have indicated positive relationships with species richness (e.g., Hector et al., 1999; Bullock et al., 2001; Tilman et al., 2001) or evenness (Kirwan et al., 2007) on herbage dry matter (DM) yield as measured under cutting. This relationship might apply not only to cut swards as found in experimental plots, but also to grazed grasslands (Sanderson et al., 2005; Isbell and Wilsey, 2011). For instance, Grace et al. (2018b) found greater biomass production of botanically diverse sown swards compared with grass-dominated swards under sheep grazing, despite lower nitrogen input. In contrast, other authors did not find species richness to be a predictor of primary production, either on mown (Kahmen et al., 2005) or on grazed sites (Rusch and Oesterheld, 1997; Tracy and Faulkner, 2006). Phytodiversity has also been shown to affect forage quality, although reports are inconsistent (Bullock et al., 2001; Tracy and Faulkner, 2006). Although pasture management intensity was the strongest driver of species composition in wetlands, cattle exclusion also significantly affected species diversity and composition.
In this study, we found that functional diversity was not affected by land‐use intensification. This result is independent of species richness since functional dispersion is loosely related to species richness (Laliberté & Legendre, 2010). This is surprising since pasture management intensity had a strong effect on other diversity metrics measured in this study. This suggests that, despite the loss of species in wetlands in IMP, we might not observe a loss of functions in these wetlands. A recent study on these wetlands found that soil C stocks were not affected by pasture management intensity (Ho et al., 2018). Despite a lack of effect of pasture management intensity on functional GonzaBet games diversity, we observed higher mean SLA and lower LDMC in wetlands in IMPs.
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To sustain high productivity in IMPs, the pastures were fertilized annually or semiannually with N, P, and K from the early 1970s to 1987 (56 kg/ha as NH4SO4 or NH4NO3 and 34–90 kg/ha of P2O5 and K2O). Rotational grazing is implemented throughout the ranch with on average 2.3 months of rest in IMPs and 6.6 months of rest in SNPs. Cattle‐stocking density is on average lower in SNPs (mean 0.47 cow–calf pairs/ha) compared to IMPs (mean 1.11 cow–calf pairs/ha) (average 2014–2020). Wetland communities are important because they provide multiple ecosystem services whose economic value is immense and they are sensitive to anthropogenic management and land‐use change (Costanza et al., 1997, 2014; de Groot et al., 2012). In many parts of the world, small isolated wetlands comprise a significant part of the landscape, especially in grazing lands, which occupy 25% of the global land surface (Asner et al., 2004). Despite their importance, the world has lost a large percentage of wetlands, and the wetlands that remain are often heavily degraded by human activities (Brinson & Malvárez, 2002; Dahl, 2014; Junk et al., 2013; Zedler & Kercher, 2005).
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- Effusus, which occurred primarily in wetlands within IMPs (46.77%), was influenced by both grazing exclusion and prescribed fire.
- In the present study, the benefit of mixed-grazing consequently ranges below the potential when considering the share of excretal patches, which may be attributed to stocking rate adaptations during the last grazing cycle or a greater surface area of dung patches.
- In our experiment, IMP wetlands were exposed to regular fertilizer runoff from surrounding pastures (with the exception of phosphorus application, which stopped in 1986) (Swain et al., 2007) and were mowed occasionally before the onset of the experiment.
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- The identity and agricultural value of forbs might, therefore, have positively influenced forage quality (Sanderson et al., 2003; Hopkins and Holz, 2006; Grace et al., 2018b), which is emphasized by larger forb concentrations in the div-swards (Jerrentrup et al., 2015).
- Therefore, species richness and abundance of forbs and legumes were confounded per se and effects of species richness and occurrence of dicotyledonous plants cannot be disentangled.
We used all three traits and Gower’s distance to calculate the dissimilarity in trait attributes between species. Finally, we calculated the mean coefficient of conservatism in each wetland and for each year of data. Agronomic aspects of biodiversity targeted management of temperate grasslands in Europe – A review.
This suggests that the management of wetlands in IMPs selected for species adopting a more acquisitive strategy (Wright et al., 2004), likely due to higher soil nutrient content (Bohlen & Gathumbi, 2007). Assuming an average surface area distribution of excretal patches of 30–40%, leading to forage loss in cattle pastures (White et al., 2001), the additional productivity benefit of mixed-grazing is highlighted. In the present study, mixed-grazing increased the area-related total LW by 20% compared to mono-grazing (13–37% ± 7.9) (Table 5), which is in accordance with previous studies (Olson et al., 1999; d’Alexis et al., 2013). In the present study, the benefit of mixed-grazing consequently ranges below the potential when considering the share of excretal patches, which may be attributed to stocking rate adaptations during the last grazing cycle or a greater surface area of dung patches.
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This suggests that, in the absence of grazing, prescribed fire might be an alternative management tool to maintain evenness in wetlands in SNPs. However, the opposite pattern was observed in fenced wetlands in IMPs, because in these wetlands fire combined with fencing promoted highly clonal grass species. This effect was not documented in the short‐term study and could be a simple lag effect or the consequence of multiple prescribed fire events.
Sward Measurements and Forage Quality
This contrasted with short‐term results obtained by Boughton et al. (2016), who found no main effect of cattle exclusion on species richness and Shannon diversity. This emphasizes the importance of long‐term experimental studies (Franklin, 1989), as lag effects may occur (Lira et al., 2019; Magnuson, 1990). Numerous studies have documented higher diversity in grazed compared to ungrazed ecosystems, most often in uplands (Hillebrand et al., 2007; Olff & Ritchie, 1998). However, livestock grazing remains a controversial issue in wetlands, especially in wetland restoration projects.
Our results showed that excluding livestock completely is not necessarily needed, in agreement with results obtained in nearby wetland restoration easements (Sonnier et al., 2018). In wetlands within SNPs, grazing levels promoted species diversity by allowing short forbs to coexist with larger clonal grasses. Grazing did not increase nonnative plant species or decrease floristic quality, and removal of grazing from wetlands resulted in an increase in trees and shrubs.
The dominant soil type is a pelosol with a silty/clay-loam texture (for details see Jerrentrup et al., 2015). The plant association of the vegetation was classified as moderately species-rich Lolio-Cynosuretum. Proportions of the three most abundant species, Dactylis glomerata, Lolium perenne, and Taraxacum sect. In the years before the experiment, the site had been manured regularly prior to cutting, and managed as cut and carry pasture, with varying proportions of cattle and sheep grazing for more than 16 years. Soil nutrient status of phosphorus and potassium were low and heterogeneously distributed over the sward (Seither et al., 2012; Jerrentrup et al., 2015). This was likely because grazing selected for two different life history strategies in these wetlands.
