Long-term functioning of a species-rich mountain meadow under different management regimes § Zuzana Mas ˇkova ´ a , Jir ˇı ´ Dolez ˇal b,c , Jan Kve ˇt c,d , Frantis ˇek Zemek d, * a Administration of the S ˇ umava National Park and Protected Landscape Area, Na Burince 339, CZ-342 01 Susˇice, Czech Republic b Institute of Botany, Section of Plant Ecology, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Dukelska ´ 135, CZ-379 82 Trˇebon ˇ, Czech Republic c Faculty of Science, University of South Bohemia, Branisˇovska ´ 31, CZ-370 05 C ˇ eske ´ Budeˇjovice, Czech Republic d Institute of Systems Biology and Ecology, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Na Sa ´dka ´ch 7, CZ-370 05 C ˇ eske ´ Budeˇjovice, Czech Republic 1. Introduction An important component of Central European landscapes are semi-natural meadows, which evolved over millennia of human activities and represent a wide spectrum of communities. They are often a source of biodiversity, so the great species richness of many of them is one of the goals of conservation as well as restoration projects. This is particularly true for uplands and mountain regions where the meadows have replaced, on cleared sites, the original mountain forests dominated by beech (Fagus sylvatica) and Norway spruce (Picea abies)(Prach et al., 1997). In the Bohemian Forest, Czech Republic, such meadows occupy about 14% of the total area. They occur mostly at altitudes of 800–1200 m and form enclaves within more or less continuous forests in which Norway spruce nowadays generally predominates. These mountain meadows were for centuries subjected to low-impact manage- ment, i.e., mowing and haymaking once a year (mostly in July) followed by cattle and sheep grazing (Klec ˇka, 1932). But since 1946 until now the meadows have undergone several changes with respect to the intensity of their management—transforma- tion into arable land, and intensive cutting or cattle grazing (Kuc ˇera and Guth, 1998). Recently, there is an urgent need to find economically acceptable and biodiversity friendly ways of the meadow manage- ment because most of the meadows occur in areas with some degree of nature conservation. One of potentially available management practices is mulching of the mountain meadows, i.e., cutting of the sward into small pieces, which are left at the site to decompose and release a large proportion of their mineral nutrient content. In scattered enclaves mulching can be a technically simpler type of grassland management than mowing or grazing. Various studies have documented the effects of different experimental treatments of meadows: cutting regimes (Bobbink Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 132 (2009) 192–202 ARTICLE INFO Article history: Received 16 July 2008 Received in revised form 19 March 2009 Accepted 2 April 2009 Available online 5 May 2009 Keywords: S ˇ umava National Park and Biosphere Reserve Grassland management Plant biomass Litter Species dominance Green herbage ratio ABSTRACT The aim of this study is to assess the effect of different management practices on mountain meadow plant biomass, species richness and diversity. The experiment was carried out in the Bohemian Forest Mts. at the altitude of 1150–1170 m for 10 years. We applied three treatments (mowing, mulching – i.e., cutting and crushing of the sward into small pieces which are left at the site to decompose, abandonment – fallow) to a mountain meadow with dominant Deschampsia cespitosa, Agrostis capillaris, Festuca rubra and Hypericum maculatum. The aboveground biomass was significantly highest in the fallow treatment and lowest in the mown one, the belowground biomass was the lowest in the fallow treatment and the highest in the mown one. The litter accumulation was higher in the fallow treatment than in the mulched one, where, nonetheless, the mulched material persisted for more than one growing season. The treatments significantly affected the plant species diversity and shifts of dominance among certain species were observed. Decrease of the species richness was observed in the fallow plot, while slightly lowered Shannon diversity and evenness were observed in the mown plot. If regular mowing of mountain meadows is not feasible for economic or technical reasons, mulching can represent an economically advantageous alternative. It will temporarily check the successional changes that sooner or later occur in meadows left fallow. ß 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. § Nomenclature: Scientific vascular plant names follow Kuba ´ t et al. (2002). * Corresponding author. Tel.: +420 387775653; fax: +420 385310249. E-mail address: f.zemek@usbe.cas.cz (F. Zemek). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/agee 0167-8809/$ – see front matter ß 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.agee.2009.04.002