Dominique Richard

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European Topic Centre on Biological Diversity http://biodiversity.eionet.eu.int

Ecosystem accounts for grasslands

What should we take into account?

Interest in grasslands:

several perspectives

Interest on grasslands can be expressed from :

- an agronomic perspective,

- a general environmental perspective

- a more specific biodiversity perspective

Combined perspectives are an expression of:

- Multifunctionality of grasslands

- Goods and services provided by grasslands.

Agronomic perspective

• Artificial grasslands: almost exclusively with forage leguminosae. Mostly

mown. 5 to 10 years

• Temporary grasslands: mixture of Grasses and Leguminosae.

Mown or pastured   

• Permanent grasslands, which include:

- Productive permanent grasslands (artificial grasslands

more than 10 years old and natural grasslands 1500 UF/year)

- Less productive permanent grasslands (alpine meadows, hills, moors and

heaths, dry and humid grasslands)

Overall, what do we see ? The environmental problems that are most difficult to solve persist

Protecting nature and bio-diversity from land take and use

Every day during 1990 - 1998, about 10 hectares of land (10 football pitches) were taken for motorway construction in the EU

1980 - 1001980 - 100

120120

built-up areabuilt-up area115115

110110

105105

100100

9595

9090

8585

1980

1980

1990

1990

1994

1994

1998

1998

forest landforest land

length oflength ofroad networkroad network

permanentpermanentgrasslandgrassland

Environmental perspective

• Erosion: runoff facilitation; mitigation of kinetic impact of rain

• Depending on practices, improvement of water quality

• Carbon storage in soils (although counterbalanced by bovine emissions)

• Landscape

Biodiversity perspective

• Related habitats are considered in the Habitats Directive: grasslands habitat-types (both in plains and mountains). Several birds-species listed in the Bird Directive depend on dry, mesic and humid grasslands habitats-types.

• From 1981, the Council of Europe had identified grassland habitats-types as a priority for conservation in Europe, encouraging member countries to include such habitat-types in the network of European Biogenetic Reserves.

• Grasslands (both humid, dry, mesic) are taken into consideration in action theme 8 of the Pan-European Biological and Landscape Diversity.

• Dry-grasslands are, with wetlands, forests and agroecosystems among the priority ecosystems taken into consideration at global level by the Convention on Biodiversity.

Some figures showing interest of

non-intensively managed

grasslands for biodiversity

• 1080 different species of Butterflies (macro and microlepidoterae) recorded on a 9,5 ha of steppic grassland in Austria (Kasy, 1979)

• 63 plant species/m2 on the Slovak karst meadow (Slovak National Biodiversity Report)

• 588 of higher plant species and ferns are recorded - of which 34% are considered as endangered - are recorded in drylands in Germany (Korneck and Sukopp, 1988) (about 3800 species at national level)

• an acre (4Ha) of old hay meadow can support about 2.25 million

spiders. Each spider would consume 2 insects a week for 6

months.

• Grasslands are dominant habitat-types in 65% of Important Plant Areas in 7 Central and Eastern European countries

• Grasslands are important reservoirs for Crop Wild Relative of cultivated plants

Out of the 71 most threatened European Butterflies species (on a total of 576 European species), 51 % are linked to grasslands habitats, and more specifically, 34% to dry/mesic grasslands habitats.

Broad habitat types used by threatened European butterflies (average percentage occurrence of SPEC 1-3 species)

heath, bog and fen8%

others12%

Woodland and scrub29%

Dry/Meso grasslands

34%

Alpine grasslands

10%

Humid grasslands

7%

Source: Council of Europe, 1999. Red Data Book on European Butterflies (Rhopalocera)

Threatened Butterflies and dry/mesic grasslands

In contrast, wildlife value of intensive agricultural grasslands is very much reduced because of two factors:

• Few different plant species grow in the field with

consequences on wild herbivores limited to those

which like eating the intensive grass species.

• Farming operations such as silaging or intensive and repeated

grazing, remove the growing crop from the field in a very short

time. Few species can survive this rapid change or

alternatively complete their lifecycle within the available period.

Ground nesting birds and certain butterfly species are

particularly vulnerable.

Offwell Woodland & Wildlife Trust

Some examples of possible

conflicts/synergies between

different goods and services

provided by grasslands

Sponging up nitrogen pollution – but losing flowers

‘Calcareous grasslands, one of Britain’s most diverseecosystems, act as a giant sponge for nitrogen pollution,saving us from some of its damaging effects

‘In experiments we increased nitrogen pollution seven times for seven years, and still more than 70% of it was soaked up. So not much nitrogen is leached into streams or released back into theatmosphere as damaging nitrous oxide.

But the cost of this service is lost plant diversity!

‘Although nitrogen is usually a fertiliser, diverse chalkgrasslands need low soil fertility. The extra fertiliser allows justa few grasses and sedges to take over. The more nitrogenpollution falling on the grassland, the greater the impact.’

Biodiversity and Nitrogen

(Gareth Phoenix, University of Sheffield)

On the other hand…….

  Decreasing nitrate leaching when grasslands are highly diverse (Scherer-Lorenzen et al. 2003, Ecology) (Experiments with manipulation of plant diversity

Also confirmed by the BIODEPTH experimental project ((Loreau et al. 2001, Science) (BIODiversity and Ecosystem Processes in Terrestrial Herbaceous Ecosystems)

Other ecosystem processes that have been shown to decline with loss of plant diversity in grasslands (BIODEPTH, 2001)

• Plant productivity - reducing harvest yield, quality and insect herbivore abundance

• Plant community population changes -reducing the ability of plants to resist weeds and plant diseases

• Soil invertebrate population changes- crucial for soil chemistry and energy recycling

• Many of these relationships had generality across all eight of the field sites, exhibiting an effect of biodiversity despite different climate, soil and plant

Conservation strips have significant disadvantages for the farmer:

- There is a loss of yield

- They are a reservoir of weed seeds to contaminate the

adjacent grass crops

Conservation strips may need to be mowed or grazed in late summer. By this time a great many species will have benefited from these temporary habitats.

The loss of production is minimal when compared to the wildlife benefit!

Offwell Woodland & Wildlife Trust

Agricultural system Energetic efficiency

0,30

5,81

2,97

1,080,36

1,41

2,64

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Source: Patrick de Verdière

Ecosystem accounts and evaluation of

ecosystem health will have to

take into consideration trades off

between the different goods and services!

Characterisation of grasslands

from various sources

Scoping study on grassland mapping

prepared by JRC in

collaboration with EEA

(2002)

Main points raised:

5 main grassland habitat-types are of interest from various biodiversity analysis (Birdlife, OECD, EUNIS Habitats, Annex I habitat-types)

- Dry grasslands - Mesic grasslands, - Seasonally wet and wet grasslands, - Alpine and subalpine grasslands, - Sparsely wooded grasslands.

In relation to agricultural issues, a further distinction should be between “improved grasslands” and “extensive grassland and pasture”, which is mostly relevant for mesic grasslands

The majority of these grassland types are mapped in CORINE Land Cover type 3.2.1. Natural grassland, except that the mesic grasslands are found more in 2.3.1. Pastures.

Main points raised:

Example for Mediterranean grasslands:

Xeric grasslandsThey show a full phenologic stop during summer and a sort of second spring in autumn when geophytic species bloom. Vegetation development is very early and there is almost no winter vegetation rest. but their reflectance is highly influenced by the ground composition.Another problem is that they can be mixed with recently abandoned crops that are far less interesting.

Mesic and wet grasslandsUnlike xeric grassland they have their maximum vegetation development in summer thanks to the water presence.They can easily be confused with annual crop, depending on the date of the image. Use of multidate images can be necessary to identify them.

Dehesas and other grasslands in sparsely wooded landsExtensive Mediterranean wooded pastures: difficult to make the difference with intensively managed olive tree orchards, for example.

Biopress project(LINKING PAN-EUROPEAN LANDCOVER CHANGE TO PRESSURES ON BIODIVERSITY )

Many lessons to be learned from extensive experience brought within this project

In particular use of NATURA 2000 data and CLC data for grassland analysis

Overview on potential data sources

on

grasslands in Europe

Prepared by Jan Plesnik, AOPK/ETC-BD

Apart from Corine land cover 2000 (CLC2000) and NATURA 2000 database

UNFCC Land use and land use changes : data on the their extent status and trends have started to be compiled in some European countries within land-use and land-use changes (LILUC) in the framework of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its Kyoto Protocol (cf. Watson et al. 2000).

Country Source Year(s) Note

Bulgaria www.veenecol.nl 2001 - 2005 National grassland mapping

Czech Republic www.natura2000.cz 2001 - 2004 National habitat mapping

Estonia www.veenecology.nl 1997 - 2001 National grassland inventory

Hungary www.veenecol.nl 1997 - 2001 National habitat mapping

Latvia www.veenecol.nl 2003 National grassland inventory

Lithuania www.veenecol.nl 2002 - 2005 National grassland inventory

Poland www.imuz.edu.pl 1995- 1996 National habitat inventory

Romania www.veenecol.nl 2000 - 2003 National grassland inventory

Slovakia www.veenecol.nl 1998 - 2002 National grassland inventory

Slovenia www.veenecol.nl 2003 National grassland inventory

Sweden www.pro-natura.net 2001 National semi-natural grassland inventories

Turkey www.veenecol.nl Under preparation National grassland inventory

National grassland inventories

Conclusions

• For grassland-ecosystem accounts, many issues to

take into account (characterisation of grasslands,

various ecosystem services and potential trades-off)

• Several past or on-going projects of high relevance

to help defining a methodology (JRC scoping survey,

BIOPRESS, BioHAB, MacMan, GREENGRASS,

AlterNet..)

• Some countries (i.e France) interested in launching a

national Millenium Ecosystem Assessment.

Look for synergy!

Can we consider to organise next year a two-days workshop dedicated to grasslands accounts with experts

involved in various aspects of grasslands assessments?

Thank you!