An 11-year rest grazing grassland and a continuous grazing grassland were studied to understand soil water and carbon storages.
The relative magnitudes of, and factors controlling, denitrification and dissimilatory nitrate reduction to ammonium (DNRA) were measured in the soil of a re-connected temperate floodplain divided into four different land management zones (grazing grassland, hay meadow, fritillary meadow and a buffer zone).
Milchunas et al. (1994) found that during dry years, net primary production decreased more in heavily grazed compared to lightly grazed grasslands, but in wet years, lightly grazed grasslands had higher rates of net primary production than heavily grazed pastures.
In northern Europe grazed grasslands are one of the most threatened habitat in the rural landscape and thus in focus for conservation plans.
The species occurs in deciduous forests and mixed forests, gardens, along hedges and grassy road banks, and grazed grasslands.
Our results on habitat-specific population growth in combination with the overall observed decreases in the amount of high quality breeding habitat for wheatears, i.e. grazed grasslands and farmyards, therefore suggest that loss of high quality habitat is a major factor for the observed decline in population numbers of wheatears in Sweden.
Moreover, some of the most plant-species-rich ecosystems in the world are traditionally grazed grasslands in Europe (Wilson et al., 2012).
Intensively grazed fields had lower species numbers, lower density and diversity than extensively grazed grassland but were still much more species rich and diverse than the fertilised fields.
For example, Nunan et al. [ 16] demonstrated a more important influence of the plant community composition than of the individual plant species on the root colonizing bacterial community in an upland grazed grassland, whereas Osanai et al. [ 12] showed a significant impact of the plant species on the soil bacterial community composition.
Nunan et al. [ 16] found a weak influence of plant community or no effect of plant species on the structure and diversity of the root-colonizing bacterial community when comparing five cooccurring grass species from an upland grazed grassland in Scotland.
