TY - JOUR

T1 - Ecology and Conservation of Steppes and Semi-Natural Grasslands

AU - Valkó, Orsolya

AU - Zmihorski, Michal

AU - Biurrun, Idoia

AU - Loos, Jacqueline

AU - Labadessa, Rocco

AU - Venn, Stephen

N1 - Funding Information: We are grateful to all authors for their contributions in this special issue and to all the referees for their considerable input of time and effort. We are especially grateful to Aiko Huckauf, Siobhan Loftus and Laura Sutcliffe for their professional linguistic editing and the courtesy of the Eurasian Dry Grassland Group and the International Association for Vegetation Science for their financial support. O.V. was funded by OTKA PD 111807 grant and the Bolyai János Research Fellowship of the HAS during manuscript preparation. Publisher Copyright: © 2016 by Orsolya Valkó.

PY - 2016/12/1

Y1 - 2016/12/1

N2 - Palaearctic grasslands encompass a diverse variety of habitats, many of high nature value and vulnerability. The main challenges are climate-change, land-use change, agricultural intensification and abandonment. Many measures are in place to address these challenges, through restoration and appropriate management, though more work is necessary. We present eight studies from China/Germany, Greece, Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine. The papers cover a wide range of grassland and steppe habitats and cover vegetation ecology, syntaxonomy and zoology. We also conducted a systematic search on steppe and grassland diversity. The greatest number of studies was from China, followed by Germany and England. We conclude that the amount of research being carried out on Eurasian grasslands is inadequate considering their high levels of biodiversity and vulnerability. We hope to encourage readers to address current major challenges, such as how to manage grasslands for the benefit of diverse taxa, to ensure that conservation initiatives concentrate on sites where there is good potential for success and for the generation of realistic and viable conservation strategies.

AB - Palaearctic grasslands encompass a diverse variety of habitats, many of high nature value and vulnerability. The main challenges are climate-change, land-use change, agricultural intensification and abandonment. Many measures are in place to address these challenges, through restoration and appropriate management, though more work is necessary. We present eight studies from China/Germany, Greece, Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine. The papers cover a wide range of grassland and steppe habitats and cover vegetation ecology, syntaxonomy and zoology. We also conducted a systematic search on steppe and grassland diversity. The greatest number of studies was from China, followed by Germany and England. We conclude that the amount of research being carried out on Eurasian grasslands is inadequate considering their high levels of biodiversity and vulnerability. We hope to encourage readers to address current major challenges, such as how to manage grasslands for the benefit of diverse taxa, to ensure that conservation initiatives concentrate on sites where there is good potential for success and for the generation of realistic and viable conservation strategies.

KW - abandonment

KW - diversity

KW - extensive agriculture

KW - grasslands

KW - homogenization

KW - intensive agriculture

KW - land-use change

KW - Ecosystems Research

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84983261766&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1515/hacq-2016-0021

DO - 10.1515/hacq-2016-0021

M3 - Journal articles

AN - SCOPUS:84983261766

VL - 15

SP - 5

EP - 14

JO - Hacquetia

JF - Hacquetia

SN - 1581-4661

IS - 2

ER -