出版社:International Association for Landscape Ecology, Chapter Germany
摘要:The biodiversity of wood-pastures depends on a balance between
human interference and natural vegetation succession, which however
is undergoing changes driven by socio-economic factors and climate
change. Widely spread throughout Europe, wood-pastures were subject
to either intensification or abandonment, leading to habitat segregation
and loss. This is currently the fate of large Romanian remnant woodpastures
and climate warming further complicates management
adaptation.
In a series of simulation experiments, we compared the long-term
effects of different land use and climate change scenarios on the habitat
diversity of a wood-pasture in the Southern Carpathians (Fundata village,
Romania). We tested livestock densities according to management
guidelines, complemented with shrub-cutting in order to maintain a
structurally-diverse landscape with high habitat values in the light of
climate change. We found that significant losses of open pastureland and
inclusion into forest, as well as landscape structural simplification and
loss of complex habitats can be expected from climate warming, with
more severe consequences in a hotter climate perspective. We argue
for the re-establishment of the traditional multi-use of wood-pastures
at optimum livestock densities in combination with low-intensity shrubcutting,
because our study demonstrated that traditional practices
offer a balanced compromise between agricultural use and maintaining
habitat mosaics that are robust to climate change.