More about the Network
Agricultural exploitation of land is continuing to reduce biodiversity in many parts of Europe as e.g. former species- rich grasslands are exploited intensively, or abandoned after earlier low-intensity farming activity. However, in some areas of Europe attempts are being made to maintain, develop and to restore the original biodiversity by creating nature reserves and simulating traditional land use forms by management practices. Another option is to establish alternative land use forms that create a new biodiversity but are integrated with farming practices. Such land use is therefore also a socio-economically practical alternative to the actual intensive exploitation. This Network has been established to gain a greater understanding of the mechanisms by which biodiversity – with a main focus on plant diversity - can be maintained within unchanged semi-natural landscapes or be restored on land that has previously been heavily cultivated or abandoned, with a view to successful conservation and restoration projects.
Europe has few areas that have been totally unaffected by human activities, but large numbers of semi-natural grasslands retained much of their original flora until recently, even though to visual appearances the vegetation had changed drastically. However, in recent decades plant diversity in these semi-natural grasslands has decreased dramatically due to changing land-use, such as drainage, high input of fertilisers, and re-allotment programmes that increase the frequency of hay-cutting, for example, and lead to more intensive grazing by livestock. In earlier times such land had been grazed and cut for hay at relatively low levels that had in the long-term only limited impact on biodiversity, which therefore remained high. The aim of this Network is to plug important gaps in our scientific knowledge of mechanisms within grasslands that created a distinct plant diversity and will also help to restore original or new levels of plant diversity. The Network will also address to the socio-economic assessment of traditional and actual land-use forms as well as alternatives that maintain or restore a high biodiversity, in order to see how far agriculture and conservation can coexist. By establishing models for assessing the value of restoration projects, a better balance between conservation and agriculture can be achieved.
Practically, there are two ways in which we might proceed – (1) a process-based approach, in which we analyse the different mechanisms (biotic, abiotic, socio-economic) in isolation or – (2) a land-use system approach, in which we analyse different systems from both an ecological and socio-economic point of view. The latter, more integrative and exciting approach is the aim of this Network which includes the following systems - low input managed grassland on poor/dry, sandy, calcareous soil (e.g. Swabian Alb/Germany, Stora Alvaret/Sweden, Laelatu and Alvar/Estonia and Dehesa/Spain), wetlands and fen meadows (e.g. Drenthe/The Netherlands, Devon/United Kingdom) and high input farming (e.g. Betuwe/The Netherlands).
Ecological analysis
The background of the ecological analysis is the species-pool concept, which explains diversity not only by including the actual abiotic conditions but also historical aspects and spatial aspects. Therefore, the ecological analysis of each system will integrate data on landscape history, the history of the plant species pool, historical and modern vegetation maps, abiotic conditions including hydrology and soil chemistry, relevant biological characters of the species, long-term management experiments including agricultural practices, long-term restoration experiments and finally succession data.
Special emphasis will be laid on the impact of changing abiotic conditions and on the biological characters of the species with respect to its adaptation to management such as grazing or mowing and their dispersability in both space (e.g. dispersal by management or restoration practices such as livestock or re-introduction) and time (longevity of the seed bank).
By establishing models integrating these data plant diversity can be predicted at least in terms of species richness. The application of the plant functional type-approach should allow us to specify those plant species that are especially at risk from changes in land use or abandonment.
Socio-economic analysis
The socio-economic approach includes the analysis of data on agricultural practices. Socio-economic data can also be applied to create various scenarios which, when integrated with ecological data, result in different degrees of plant diversity and composition. The input on current strategies in EU policy will allow to predict how distinct scenarios are valid for a long-term on this scale.
Socio-economic analysis should also include the assessment of restoration practices and alternative land-use practices such as ecological or organic farming or herding of different types of livestock over long distances.
Workshops
The last workshop was held in Groningen in The Netherlands from 23 - 26 of March 2001. A Coordination Committee Meeting was also held in conjunction with this event.
