In mountain pastures worldwide, studies investigating vegetation changes due to long-term grazing and environmental changes are sparse, especially regarding the effects of changes in snowmelt ...patterns. The outstanding availability of historical vegetation data from Kyrgyz mountain pastures creates unique opportunities to study past and forecast future changes, making them ideal model ecosystems. Using a resurvey approach, we explored the response of mountain vegetation to management and environmental changes in the Western Tien-Shan to investigate whether plant communities of six vegetation types (ecozones) had changed over 42 years, whether changes were related to management or ecological causes and whether species' mean elevational ranges had changed. We assembled historic vegetation data (1973–1987) in six ecozones that were resurveyed annually from 2008 to 2015 and connected them with species' management-related traits and ecological indicator values. Overall, a homogenization of vegetation within and among ecozones was observed. Mountain steppe, meadow-steppe, and subalpine meadows showed the strongest convergence towards a dominance of mesic shrubs, related to increasing precipitation changing soil moisture and soil-salt regimes. In the high mountain steppe and the alpine ecozone, cushion dwarf shrubs increased, driven by increased soil moisture following faster snowmelt. Changes in the semidesert were related to highly variable spring soil moisture. Compositional changes accelerated over time. Mostly palatable species declined in abundance. More competitive unpalatable species replaced abundant (1973) unpalatable species. Mean elevation shifted significantly for 35 species (out of 136), with 60% shifting >100 m, more often upward (low and high elevations) than downward (mid-elevations). These mountain ecosystems seem more sensitive to changing precipitation than temperature- or grazing-induced changes, making climatic change a more important driver than management. Further adaptive management should consider the response of the vegetation to environmental changes and promote alternative land-use options to maintain ecosystem functioning. In mountain ecosystems worldwide, the observed acceleration of changes might go unnoticed, calling for long-term studies and global climate-vegetation-management interaction models.
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•We address lacking long-term investigations of vegetation change in mountain pastures.•Repeated resurveys reveal shifts in montane vegetation in Central Asia.•Vegetation is homogenizing within and among ecozones, and changes accelerate.•Species mainly shift upwards at low and high elevations, at mid-elevations downwards.•Main drivers of change were precipitation variations and grazing pressure.
Land abandonment in the Mediterranean mountains since the 20th century has led to a reduction of ecosystem services, due to revegetation and homogenization of the landscape. To counteract these ...effects, the regional administration of La Rioja in Spain initiated a Plan for Shrub Clearing (PSC) combined with extensive livestock grazing in 1986, which is still in action today. This study analyses the effects of pairing clearing with grazing in an experimental area of the Leza valley (Iberian System) on: (i) the landscape structure and structural diversity; (ii) the production of pasture; (iii) fire control; (iv) soil organic carbon sequestration (also considering soil environmental types); (v) surface water resources. The results show that: (i) a more fragmented landscape with greater diversity is created; (ii) grazing land is almost doubled in alkaline soils and four-fold in siliceous soils; (iii) fires are considerably reduced, with the mean surface fire spread falling from 34.1 ha/year from 1968 to 1985, to 1.2 ha/year between 1986 and 2022; (iv) regenerated post-clearance grazing soils sequester more organic carbon than that of shrublands, especially older clearings on alkaline soils (55.3 % more); (v) clearing increases hydrological connectivity and water resources. The conclusion is that managing the Mediterranean mid-mountains could be a very effective strategy to improve the supply of certain ecosystem services and improve the current socio-economic perspective of these marginal areas in a context of Global Change. The PSC also contributes to local development by increasing livestock numbers.
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•Land abandonment in the Mediterranean mountains has led to a lack of ecosystem services (ES).•We analyse the effects on ecosystem services of pairing shrub clearing with grazing in an experimental area.•Landscape diversity, pasture, fire control, soil organic carbon and water resources have been evaluated.•Managing the Mediterranean mid-mountains could be a very effective strategy to improve the supply of ES.•Shrub clearing plan also contributes to local development by increasing livestock numbers.
Mountain pastures are essential for maintainig biodiversity and local economies. Despite the great value and fragility of these ecosystems, an up-to-date overview of extent and type of alpine ...pastures is lacking in many areas of the Alps. In this study, the interpretation of ancillary information combined with expeditious field campaigns, and the harmonization of classification methodologies allowed us to: (1) define the spatial extent of mountain pastures; (2) identify the non-grazeable percentage in these areas; (3) Characterize and map pasture types within the Gran Paradiso National Park (Italy), where 4596 ha of grazeable areas were mapped. Among the 13 categories identified, the three most represented in the park are Bare thermophile grasslands (38%), Nardus swards (20%), and Alpine intermediate grasslands (18%). The maps obtained in this study are useful for animal management during the grazing season, and have the capability of geographically assessing potential forage avaibility through modeling and remote sensing data.
Mountain pastures and meadows have been disappearing at a steady pace from the Italian Alpine and Apennine regions for the last century. Livestock farms and pastoral activities have traditionally ...contributed to preserving them, but they are facing increasingly adverse socio-economic and climatic trends The aim of the paper is to explore the economic feasibility of a payment scheme for grassland-based ecosystem services embedded into locally produced dairy products that can compensate farmers' effort and increase their profitability. Using the method of discrete choice experiments, we estimate Italian consumers’ willingness to pay for a set of selected attributes of mountain cheese associated with provisioning, cultural, and existence ecosystem services. Our results indicate that consumers would be willing to pay cheese 4€/kg to 6€/kg more for each increase in the level of ecosystemic attributes, thus supporting the introduction of a payment scheme as a local and scalable policy intervention.
•People perceive the preservation of mountain ecosystems as highly valuable.•Consumers consider mountain ecosystem services more important than animal welfare.•A price premium on dairy goods can be used to financially support mountain farmers.•A PES scheme can be introduced to preserve mountain pastures and meadows in Italy.
•The anthropogenic pastures in the humid tropical Andes form a small-scale mosaic of grassland types characterized by different mostly exotic grass species.•Due to varying soil properties, individual ...pasture types are associated with certain geomorphological features of the sloping terrain.•Today, the fast growing African Golden Millet (Setaria sphacelata) is increasingly used to (re)plant the pastures, irrespective of the terrain.•Having investigated the pasture quality over two decades we recommend to plant Golden Millet only on the better soils of the lower slopes of the undulating terrain.
Pastoralism is the main land use in the humid tropical Andes of South America. Wide areas of mountain rainforest have been cleared for gaining pastureland. Due to the lack of indigenous useful grasses in the pristine forests, mainly exotic grass species have been used for establishing the pastures. In the Ecuadorian Andes, Axonopus compressus, Melinis minutiflora, Pennisetum clandestinum and Holcus lanatus are common pasture grass species. Their preference for certain microsites resulted in a mosaic of different pasture types, which reflect the differing ecological conditions on the undulating terrain of the mountain slopes. During the last decades, however, another exotic grass species, Setaria sphacelata has widely been introduced which, because of its fast growth on some of the sites could successfully suppress the formerly dominant plant species. With respect to the changing microclimate and cattle stocking rates the present study explored, whether planting Setaria is the best option for the common low-input type of pasture farming in these tropical mountains. In a study over twenty years, the development of four main pasture types, dominated by the above-mentioned grass species was investigated in areas with and without Setaria, and their topographical occurrence on the sloping terrain was analyzed. On forty-eight plots a pairwise (with or without Setaria) comparison of species composition and diversity, biomass production, forage quality and soil properties was performed. Although Setaria grows faster than the other grass species, its productivity was only higher on flat terrain. The nutritive value of the Setaria plots was at best equivalent to that of the former pastures, while species richness was consistently lower. Our results suggest the maintenance of a terrain-adapted diversification of the pastures and in particular the use of Setaria only on flat terrain.
Agropastoral traditions have changed considerably in the Alps since the beginning of the twentieth century, but some of these traditions are still alive and prospering. Bearing witness to a cultural ...heritage of which the intangible roots are not easily perceptible, landscapes, understood as cultural objects, the agricultural fabric and the different crafts that maintain it, the built forms of dwellings resulting from the accumulations of centuries, vernacular architecture as a vector of identity, all these remain as indications of how the mountains were inhabited. In the Hautes-Alpes department, the practice of mountain pasturing during the summer (‘estive’) is still perpetuated, although the heritage associated with this practice has witnessed a period of abandonment and then reconquest. The mountains landscapes have been fashioned and sculpted by agropastoral practices and remain as a living witness to these practices. The buildings for the alpine pasturing and the isolated shelters for shepherds are fragile constructions requiring constant maintenance. Their restoration guarantees the survival of this mountain heritage, even if the buildings are only rarely used today for pasturing. The evolution of the heritage of agropastoralism is well illustrated by the farms of the reconstruction period after the Second World War. They offer a new typology based on post-war modernisation.
Ecological theory suggests that several nested environmental filters, acting at different spatial scales, shape the assemblages of local plant species. However, it is unclear whether different ...biodiversity components, that is, taxonomy, function and phylogenetic, respond similarly to these filters. The integration of these different components into coherent and comprehensive analytical frameworks also remains unclear. In this study, we developed an approach to test the relative effects of elevation, habitat fragmentation and grazing management on the functional, phylogenetic, and taxonomic structures of mountain pastures. Thirty summer farms, distributed along an elevational gradient were surveyed in the Italian Alps. Within these farms (around 100ha), we identified all areas as one of two types of management (intensive or extensive), and we sampled three plots for each area, a total of 180 plots. Using the same mathematical framework, we quantified the functional (FD), phylogenetic (PD) and taxonomic (TD) diversity of each plot. We tested the influences of three environmental filters (elevation, habitat fragmentation and grazing management), using a series of partial regression analyses within a univariate and multivariate framework, as well as specific permutation schemes that accounted for our nested design. We found that elevation, habitat fragmentation, and grazing management affected the community structure, but in different ways. This finding confirmed that these filters operate at different scales and, despite some similarities, have different effects on various biodiversity components. Interestingly, FD was the only component that responded to all three types of predictors. Regarding functional aspects, elevation, as a broad-scale environmental gradient, showed a greater influence on dominant trait values, whereas at finer scales, grazing management had a primary effect on both dominant trait values and diversity measures. Habitat fragmentation showed a primary influence on TD, probably because the effect on dispersal limitations concerned mostly species availability. The hierarchical, multi-faceted approach adopted in this study yielded insights into the factors influencing biodiversity and community assembly processes in mountain pastures, thereby highlighting the importance of considering multiple facets of diversity in assessing the role of environmental filtering in vegetation structure.
In mountain regions, the likelihood of mudflows might increase due to climate change. Although mudflows are common worldwide and devastate agricultural land, virtually nothing is known about the ...revegetation of mudflow deposits for agricultural purposes. To provide recommendations for rapid revegetation of mountain pastures, 52 permanent plots (4 m × 4 m) on 20 revegetated mudflow deposits in the Nature Park Sölktäler were established. We evaluated different revegetation measures (seed addition alone or combined with application of straw, lime or cattle manure) two years after sowing using commercial clover-grass seed mixtures. Furthermore, 27 permanent plots on 15 unsown mudflow deposits were surveyed. Sowing seeds can considerably accelerate revegetation on siliceous mudflow deposits.
,
,
,
and
are particularly suitable for rapid grassland reestablishment, whereas
is not recommendable. A pure straw application should be avoided because it delays the revegetation success. Lime addition is not recommended because it can lead to an undesirable legume dominance if clover-grass seed mixtures are used for revegetation. The most effective measure for large-scale revegetation seems to be seed addition without additives. To facilitate revegetation on coarse-grained deposits, large rocks should be crushed using a stone mill.
Social-ecological resilience is defined by Brian Walker and colleagues as “the capacity of a social-ecological system (SES) to absorb disturbances and reorganize while undergoing change so as to ...continue to retain essentially the same function, structure, feedbacks, and therefore identity.” It is an increasingly widespread concept whose success depends, among other things, on the promise of its rapid transfer from science into practice and its operational character for the sustainable management of SESs. However, tangible examples of management methods based on resilience remain limited in the scientific literature. Here, we test the resilience management framework proposed by Brian Walker and David Salt by applying it to the case of mountain summer pastures in the French Alps, which are complex SESs in which human and ecological dimensions are closely linked and subject to substantial perturbations due to climate change. Three steps were implemented: (1) building a conceptual model based on expert knowledge of the functioning of summer pastures; (2) building, from the model, a template for summer pasture resilience analysis; and (3) testing the operational character of the model and the template for two pairs of contrasting cases. This heuristic tool enables understanding the ways in which farmers and herders manage the resilience of their system but does not aim to quantify resilience. The method developed, together with the resilience concept, provide insights into the functioning of summer pastures from both biophysical and management perspectives. The modeling process constitutes a learning process, which will support the implementation of adaptive management. We identified three critical points for making the method truly operational: basing modeling on an equal consideration of social and ecological dimensions, defining the boundaries of the modeled system based on the social dimension, and selecting a scale of analysis coherent with the type of development actions to be implemented.
Mountain pastures are embedded in highly sensitive mountain ecosystems and provide forage for livestock during summer. In years when forage in the lowlands becomes scarce due to over-grazing and land ...degradation, or climate-related extreme events such as droughts, increasing stocking densities or expanding grazed areas in mountain pastures provide an additional and cost-efficient forage source. Their utilization highly depends on the management decisions of farmers and practices on their own agricultural land. To predict future land use and concomitant ecological impacts, it is crucial to understand the complex interplay between the decisions of farmers as well as the socio-economic and climatic environment. To understand these interactions, we use the agent-based part of the SECLAND model to analyze the future systemic feedback between climate change, land owner’s decisions on land use, and land use change on agricultural land and mountain pastures in the department of Ariège, France. We develop three land use scenarios for a sustainability-driven, a business-as-usual, and a scenario driven by fossil-fueled economic growth. In all scenarios, 32–46% of farms cease to exist, while active farms intensify their land use. On mountain pastures, results show increasing stocking densities up to the maximum carrying capacity of 0.3 livestock units per hectare, especially under the scenario with strong climate change effects and increased extreme events. Additionally, these patterns are strongly shaped by farm succession, vegetation regrowth on unused mountain pastures, and the search for cost-efficient forage resources. Such high stocking densities on mountain pastures increase the pressure on the ecosystem through manure droppings and the introduction of alien microbes, calling for considerate management to avoid conflicting situations. Agent-based models such as that used in this study enable researchers to untangle the described complex interactions between grazing livestock, and the utilization of lowland and mountain pastures in European mountain agroecosystems.
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