Intensity dependent effects of free and pastoral grazing in alkali grassland vegetation
Abstract
We studied the effects of grazing on short grass alkali grasslands vegetation. The study plots were grazed by traditional pastoral grazing of Hungarian Grey cattle (grazing intensities ranged from 0.5 up to 2.5 animal unit/ha), other plots were grazed by free grazing (0.1 animal unit/ha) and there were also further overgrazed plots (4 animal unit/ha). We set the following study question: (i) How do the grazing affect the species richness, functional diversity and evenness along an intensity gradient? We found no significant differences between in species richness of different intensity grazed plots, but Shannon diversity, evenness scores and cover of target species displayed a humped-shaped curve with a peak at medium grazing intensity. The highest Rao’s quadratic entropy was found in low intensity free grazed plots. Our findings clearly suggest that for a high functional diversity a low intensity cattle grazing can be recommended, but for the highest diversity, evenness and cover of target species can be sustained by medium grazing intensity.
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