A research paper by Elisabeth Prangel et al. with a title of „Afforestation and abandonment of semi‐natural grasslands lead to biodiversity loss and a decline in ecosystem services and functions“ was recently published in the Journal of Applied Ecology.
The research results showed that abandonment and afforestation of historical semi-natural grasslands have significant negative impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem’s capacity to support and provide ecosystem services. Open alvar grasslands have an important role in biodiversity conservation and ecosystem service provision. The research also found a significant positive relationship between species richness and ecosystem multifunctionality, i.e. more biodiverse grasslands were able to support more services at higher capacity at the same time without any significant trade-offs.
Hence, the authors are also emphasizing the importance of ecosystem restoration and conservation especially in the light of climate and land-use change.
The article can be found here.
