Dataset Information

Data on flower resources for pollinators in Romanian semi-natural grasslands mown at different times.

ABSTRACT: Semi-natural grasslands are hotspots of biodiversity in Europe and provide amounts of flower resources for pollinators. We present data on composition and spatial turnover of herb species and flower resources in and between semi-natural grasslands in Romania mown at different times during the growth season (early, intermediate, late). The data include herb species occurrences, their phenological stage, flower resources, and measures of spatial turnover of the species occurrences and flower resources based on Detrended Correspondence Analyses (DCA), in the start of August. The dataset is provided as supplementary material and associated with the research article "Traditional semi-natural grassland management with heterogeneous mowing times enhances flower resources for pollinators in agricultural landscapes" [1] Johansen et al.. See Johansen et al. for data interpretation.

SUBMITTER: Wehn S

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6562176 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Data on flower resources for pollinators in Romanian semi-natural grasslands mown at different times.

Wehn Sølvi S Westin Anna A Johansen Line L Iuga Anamaria A Ivascu Cosmin Marius CM Kallioniemi Eveliina E Lennartsson Tommy T

Data in brief 20190527

Semi-natural grasslands are hotspots of biodiversity in Europe and provide amounts of flower resources for pollinators. We present data on composition and spatial turnover of herb species and flower resources in and between semi-natural grasslands in Romania mown at different times during the growth season (early, intermediate, late). The data include herb species occurrences, their phenological stage, flower resources, and measures of spatial turnover of the species occurrences and flower resou ...[more]

PMID: 31211209

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Project description:Planted meadows are increasingly used to improve the biodiversity and aesthetic amenity value of urban areas. Although many 'pollinator-friendly' seed mixes are available, the floral resources these provide to flower-visiting insects, and how these change through time, are largely unknown. Such data are necessary to compare the resources provided by alternative meadow seed mixes to each other and to other flowering habitats. We used quantitative surveys of over 2 million flowers to estimate the nectar and pollen resources offered by two exemplar commercial seed mixes (one annual, one perennial) and associated weeds grown as 300m2 meadows across four UK cities, sampled at six time points between May and September 2013. Nectar sugar and pollen rewards per flower varied widely across 65 species surveyed, with native British weed species (including dandelion, Taraxacum agg.) contributing the top five nectar producers and two of the top ten pollen producers. Seed mix species yielding the highest rewards per flower included Leontodon hispidus, Centaurea cyanus and C. nigra for nectar, and Papaver rhoeas, Eschscholzia californica and Malva moschata for pollen. Perennial meadows produced up to 20x more nectar and up to 6x more pollen than annual meadows, which in turn produced far more than amenity grassland controls. Perennial meadows produced resources earlier in the year than annual meadows, but both seed mixes delivered very low resource levels early in the year and these were provided almost entirely by native weeds. Pollen volume per flower is well predicted statistically by floral morphology, and nectar sugar mass and pollen volume per unit area are correlated with flower counts, raising the possibility that resource levels can be estimated for species or habitats where they cannot be measured directly. Our approach does not incorporate resource quality information (for example, pollen protein or essential amino acid content), but can easily do so when suitable data exist. Our approach should inform the design of new seed mixes to ensure continuity in floral resource availability throughout the year, and to identify suitable species to fill resource gaps in established mixes.

Project description:Grassland biodiversity is vulnerable to land use change. How to best manage semi-natural grasslands for maintaining biodiversity is still unclear in many cases because land-use processes may depend on environmental conditions and the indirect effects of land-use on biodiversity mediated by altered abiotic and biotic factors are rarely considered. Here we evaluate the relative importance of the direct and indirect effects of grazing intensity on plant communities along an elevational gradient on a large topographic scale in the Eastern Carpathians in Ukraine. We sampled for two years 31 semi-natural grasslands exposed to cattle grazing. Within each grassland site we measured plant community properties such as the number of species, functional groups, and the proportion of species undesirable for grazing. In addition, we recorded cattle density (as a proxy for grazing intensity), soil properties (bare soil exposure, soil organic carbon, and soil pH) and densities of soil decomposers (earthworms and soil microorganisms). We used structural equation modelling to explore the direct and indirect effects of grazing intensity on plant communities along the elevation gradient. We found that cattle density decreased plant species and functional diversity but increased the proportion of undesirable species. Some of these effects were directly linked to grazing intensity (i.e., species richness), while others (i.e., functional diversity and proportion of undesirable species) were mediated via bare soil exposure. Although grazing intensity decreased with elevation, the effects of grazing on the plant community did not change along the elevation gradient. Generally, elevation had a strong positive direct effect on plant species richness as well as a negative indirect effect, mediated via altered soil acidity and decreased decomposer density. Our results indicate that plant diversity and composition are controlled by the complex interplay among grazing intensity and changing environmental conditions along an elevation gradient. Furthermore, we found lower soil pH, organic carbon and decomposer density with elevation, indicating that the effects of grazing on soil and related ecosystem functions and services in semi-natural grasslands may be more pronounced with elevation. This demonstrates that we need to account for environmental gradients when attempting to generalize effects of land-use intensity on biodiversity.

Dataset Information

Data on flower resources for pollinators in Romanian semi-natural grasslands mown at different times.

Publications

Data on flower resources for pollinators in Romanian semi-natural grasslands mown at different times.

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