Impact analysis of drought, water excess and salinity on grass production in The Netherlands using historical and future climate data

The coupled SWAP-WOFOST model was used to study the effects of increasing salinity of groundwater, drought and water excess on grass production in The Netherlands. WOFOST simulates crop growth and SWAP simulates transport of water, solutes and heat in the vadose zone. The model was tested using several datasets from field experiments. We applied the models at regional scale where we quantified the impact of various groundwater salinity levels on grass growth and production using historical weather data (1971-2000). The salt concentrations in the subsoil were derived from the National Hydrological Instrument. The results show that salinity effects on grass production are limited. In wet years the excess rainfall will infiltrate the soil and reduce salt water seepage. In a next step we used future weather data for the year 2050, derived from 3 Global Circulation Models. From each model we used data from two CO₂ emission scenarios. As expected higher temperatures increased drought stress, however, the production reduction as a result of salt water in the root zone is limited. Salt stress mainly occurred when irrigation was applied with saline water. The increased CO₂ concentration in combination with the limited drought stress resulted in increasing simulated actual and potential yields. Overall conclusion for grassland in The Netherlands: drought stress is stronger than stress caused by water excess which on its turn is stronger than salinity stress. Future water demand for irrigation may increase by 11-19% and result in water scarcity if water supply is insufficient.     

Habitat type-based bioaccumulation and risk assessment of metal and As contamination in earthworms, beetles and woodlice

The present study investigated the contribution of environmental factors to the accumulation of As, Cd, Cu, Pb and Zn in earthworms, beetles and woodlice, and framed within an exposure assessment of the European hedgehog. Soil and invertebrate samples were collected in three distinct habitat types. Results showed habitat-specific differences in soil and invertebrate metal concentrations and bioaccumulation factors when normalized to soil metal concentration. Further multiple regression analysis showed residual variability (habitat differences) in bioaccumulation that could not be fully explained by differences in soil metal contamination, pH or organic carbon (OC). Therefore, the study demonstrated that in bioaccumulation studies involving terrestrial invertebrates or in risk assessment of metals, it is not sufficient to differentiate habitat types on general soil characteristics such as pH and/or OC alone. Furthermore, simple generic soil risk assessments for Cd and Cu showed that risk characterization was more accurate when performed in a habitat-specific way.     

Ecological impacts of early 21st century agricultural change in Europe – A review

The impacts of agricultural land use are far-reaching and extend to areas outside production. This paper provides an overview of the ecological status of agricultural systems across the European Union in the light of recent policy changes. It builds on the previous review of 2001 devoted to the impacts of agricultural intensification in Western Europe. The focus countries are the UK, The Netherlands, Boreal and Baltic countries, Portugal, Hungary and Romania, representing a geographical spread across Europe, but additional reference is made to other countries. Despite many adjustments to agricultural policy, intensification of production in some regions and concurrent abandonment in others remain the major threat to the ecology of agro-ecosystems impairing the state of soil, water and air and reducing biological diversity in agricultural landscapes. The impacts also extend to surrounding terrestrial and aquatic systems through water and aerial contamination and development of agricultural infrastructures (e.g. dams and irrigation channels). Improvements are also documented regionally, such as successful support of farmland species, and improved condition of watercourses and landscapes. This was attributed to agricultural policy targeted at the environment, improved environmental legislation, and new market opportunities. Research into ecosystem services associated with agriculture may provide further pressure to develop policy that is targeted at their continuous provisioning, fostering motivation of land managers to continue to protect and enhance them.     

Shrub Encroachment Impacts the Potential for Multiple Use Conflicts on Public Land

Public rangelands in North America are typically managed under a multiple use policy that includes livestock grazing and wildlife management. In this article we report on the landscape level extent of grassland loss to shrub encroachment in a portion of the Rocky Mountain Forest Reserve in southwestern Alberta, Canada, and review the associated implications for simultaneously supporting livestock and wildlife populations while maintaining range health on this diminishing vegetation type. Digitized aerial photographs of 12 km of valley bottom from 1958 and 1974 were co-registered to ortho-rectified digital imagery taken in 1998, and an un-supervised classification used to determine areas associated with grassland and shrubland in each year. Field data from 2002 were over-layed using GPS coordinates to refine the classification using a calibration-validation procedure. Over the 40-year study period, open grasslands declined from 1,111 ha in 1958 to 465 ha in 1998, representing a 58% decrease. Using mean production data for grass and shrub dominated areas we then quantified aggregate changes in grazing capacity of both primary (grassland) and secondary (shrubland) habitats for livestock and wildlife. Total declines in grazing capacity from 1958 to 1998 totaled 2,744 Animal Unit Months (AUMs) of forage (−39%), including a 58% decrease in primary (i.e., open grassland) range, which was only partly offset by the availability of 1,357 AUMs within less productive and less accessible shrubland habitats. Our results indicate shrub encroachment has been extensive and significantly reduced forage availability to domestic livestock and wildlife, and will increase the difficulty of conserving remaining grasslands. Although current grazing capacities remain marginally above those specified by regulated grazing policies, it is clear that continued habitat change and decreases in forage availability are likely to threaten the condition of remaining grasslands. Unless shrub encroachment is arrested or grassland restoration initiated, reductions in aggregate ungulate numbers may be necessary.

松嫩草原黄墩蚁〔Lasisus flavus (Fabricius)〕对土壤理化性质的影响

黄墩蚁是松嫩草原土壤动物优势类群中唯一的大型土壤动物,是研究羊草草原分解者亚系统中大型土壤动物功能及作用机理的理想对象.本文研究了黄墩蚁筑巢活动对土壤物理和化学性质的影响,结果表明,黄墩蚁的筑巢活动改变了土壤颗粒的粒径分布,土壤的孔隙度增加,也明显阻止了盐分的上泛,同时增加了土壤中有机质、速效氮和速效磷的含量.受土壤理化性质改变的影响,蚁丘周围的植被组成、密度、生物量等群落特征指标也发生了较大变化.研究表明,由黄墩蚁活动引起的草原微生境的改变有利于羊草的生长和繁殖,黄墩蚁加速了羊草 虎尾草群落向羊草群落的演替,因此可以断定黄墩蚁是松嫩草原生态系统中的一个重要的干扰因子,可以利用它们这种生态作用加速退化草原的修复和重建.同时,黄墩蚁主要分布于羊草较多的生境中,对周围环境差异反应敏感,也可以作为羊草草原退化的指示物种之一.图3表2参15     

呼伦贝尔草原植被覆盖时空动态变化监测定量方法研究

开展植被动态监测与评价,是评估生态保护措施、环境管理政策和全球变化研究的重要基础。论文以呼伦贝尔草原为例,基于1998—2008年间SPOT_VGT NDVI旬数据,通过分析生长期间的植被年均NDVI值、年NDVI最大值、年NDVI最小值、季节性动态性与物候的变化状况及其趋势,反映研究区植被覆盖空间特征,监测植被覆盖动态变化情况。结果表明:研究区植被覆盖区域特征为:以林地为主的区域草地-耕地-林地过渡区以耕地为主的区域以草地为主的区域;11 a来,研究区植被覆盖呈减弱趋势,植被覆盖最佳期提前,以林地为主的区域、草地-耕地-林地过渡区和以耕地为主的区域植被覆盖季节性动态变化较小,植被覆盖稳定性较强,而以草地为主的地区植被覆盖最小值日期推后,其季节性动态变化较大,生态环境稳定性较差。     

Grassy field margins as potential corridors for butterflies in agricultural landscapes: A simulation study

Over the last decades, agricultural intensification has caused a dramatic reduction of grassy habitats. This habitat loss has had a strong negative effect on many meadow-living insect populations, including butterflies. As a part of the cross-compliance measures of the Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union, subsidies for creation and maintenance of grassy field margins (GFM) have been launched. Among other environmental issues, they may serve as corridors for movement of various meadow-living species between individual meadows. Their role as corridors has, however, not yet been demonstrated at the landscape scale and their characteristics that most significantly increase landscape connectivity are unknown. Empirical data for such studies are missing, as the GFM subsidies were launched only 3 years ago. One possibility to get some predictions of their outcomes is provided by simulation models. Here we present our simulation results, using an extension of the model developed by Kindlmann et al. (2004) for the Meadow Brown butterfly, Maniola jurtina. The extension includes the probability to cross a boundary (Conradt and Roper, 2006) that negatively influences dispersal rates but increases sensitivity to the corridor effect. Our simulations show that GFMs increase the dispersal rates between habitat patches and we predict the optimal combinations of width and number of GFMs in the landscape. This way we provide a decision-making tool for increasing landscape connectivity for M. jurtina and similar species. Although our simulations are based on a particular species, they may be generalized because this species shows dispersal rates that are typical of butterfly metapopulations (Conradt et al., 2000), and a potentially widespread dispersal kernel (i.e. “foray search”) that has been reported in a wide variety of species (see Conradt et al., 2003 for a review).     

Seasonal variation of microbial populations and biomass in Tatachia grassland soils of Taiwan

To investigate the seasonal variations of microbial ecology in grassland of Tatachia forest, soil properties, microbial populations, microbial biomass, and 16S rDNA clone library analysis were determined. The soil had temperatures 6.6–18.4°C, pH 3.6–5.1, total organic carbon 1.11–10.68%, total nitrogen 0.18–0.78%, and C/N ratios 3.46–20.55. Each gram of dry soil contained bacteria, actinomycetes, fungi, cellulolytic, phosphate-solubilizing microbes, and nitrogen-fixing microbes 4.54 × 10⁴ to 3.79 × 10⁷, 3.43 × 10² to 2.17 × 10⁵, 5.74 × 10³ to 3.76 × 10⁶, 1.97 × 10³ to 1.34 × 10⁶, 8.49 × 10² to 5.59 × 10⁵, and 3.86 × 10² to 3.75 × 10⁵ CFU, respectively. Each gram of soil contained 117–2,482 μg of microbial biomass carbon, 23–216 μg of microbial biomass nitrogen and 9–29 μg of DNA. The microbial populations, microbial biomass, and DNA decreased stepwise with the depth of soil, and they had low values in winter seasons. The microbial populations, microbial biomass carbon, microbial biomass nitrogen, and DNA at the BW2 horizon were 8.42–17.84, 19.26–64.40, 16.84–61.11, and 31.03–46.26% of those at the O horizon, respectively. When analyzing 16S rDNA library, members of Proteobacteria, Acidobacteria, Actinobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Chloroflexi, Firmicutes, candidate division TM1, candidate division TM7, Gammatimonadetes, and Verrucomicrobia were identified. Members of Proteobacteria (44.4%) and Acidobacteria (33.3%) dominated the clone libraries. Within the phylum Proteobacteria, α-, β-, and γ-Proteobacteria were most numerous, followed by δ-Proteobacteria.     

Creation of the natural reserve of La Crau: implications for the creation and management of protected areas

Grasslands were once widespread and species-rich ecosystems. They have drastically decreased throughout the world, largely due to changes in land-uses. Remnant grasslands are often highly degraded and disconnected and require active conservation. In order for grasslands to be maintained worldwide, protected areas need to be created. While adequately creating and managing protected areas has proven difficult, this can be improved by following a three-point guideline: (1) consider many ecological groups (birds, insects, plants); (2) use conservation biology knowledge; (3) seek agreements with concerned parties by comprehending elements of economy, politics and sociology. Based on the example of La Crau, a steppe area in South-eastern France, this review aims at (i) illustrating that this guideline can facilitate creating and managing protected areas and (ii) proposing improvement to the guideline while keeping it simple. In La Crau, the need for conservation was first acknowledged in 1975. Between 1983, when a request for a protection decree was made and 1990, when the first concrete protection measure was taken, 20% of the steppe disappeared. It took another 8 years to reach a concerted management plan in 1998. The review shows how using ecological guidelines would have helped better and faster protection of the steppe. Improvements to the guideline drawn from the La Crau experience include: the protection of some traditional practices; the protection of some degraded habitats that can substitute for habitats that no longer exist; the restoration of degraded habitats that do not qualify for protection; and the flexibility of the management plan.     

Spatial heterogeneity of vegetation under different grazing intensities in the Northwest Heilongjiang Steppe of China

In northern China, recent degradation of semi-arid grasslands caused by overgrazing is serious. At Green Grassland Village, west of Daqing City in Heilongjiang Province, three grasslands with different degrees of degradation were surveyed. In the survey, a new method of vegetation analysis based on the beta-binomial distribution, was adopted to describe the frequency of occurrence and spatial heterogeneity for each plant species.Chenopodium centrorubrum, Cleistogenes squarrosa and a Carex species were commonly found in the three grasslands. Non-degraded grassland with light grazing was dominated by Arundinella hirta, Filifolium sibiricium, Lespedeza hedysaroides, Potentilla verticillaris, Stipa baicalensis and Thymus serpyllum. These species belong to the erect-type or do not develop large clones under light grazing. These species can be used as indicators of a well-managed grassland in this area. On the other hand, the degraded grassland with heavy grazing was dominated by Artemisia spp. and Euphorbia humifusa var. pilosa. Artemisia spp., E. humifusa var. pilosa, Eragrostis pilosa and Setaria viridis belong to the creeping-type or develop rather large stocks or stolons under heavy utilization. These species increased the spatial heterogeneity in the degraded grassland with heavy grazing.Under degraded conditions, species diversity decreased and spatial heterogeneity of the communities tended to increase.