Parallel declines in insect-pollinated plants and their pollinators have been reported as a result of agricultural intensification. Intensive arable plant communities have previously been shown to contain higher proportions of self-pollinated plants compared to natural or semi-natural plant communities. Though intensive grasslands are widespread, it is not known whether they show similar patter...

Florida’s dry prairies are rare and threatened due to suppression of natural fire regimes in these fire-dependent ecosystems. Ecological restoration of dry prairies reduces the growth of shrubs resulting from lack of fire, while encouraging the growth of grasses and forbs. In addition to prescribed burning, these efforts often use mechanical disturbance such as roller-chopping. In this study we...

Questions: How do fire frequency, tree canopy cover, and their interactions influence cover of grasses, forbs and understorey woody plants in oak savannas and woodlands? Location: Minnesota, USA. Methods: We measured plant functional group cover and tree canopy cover on permanent plots within a long-term prescribed fire frequency experiment and used hierarchical linear modeling to assess plant ...

Restoration treatments are based on the largely untested notion that desired recovery of plant communities following disturbance wouldn’t occur in the absence of active intervention. We identified rate of short-term (10 year) floristic changes following removal of plant functional groups in Wyoming big sagebrush plant communities in 1999e2005 and 2008. Treatments imposed on 6 6 m plots were: 1)...

Weedy plants may have unique functional traits that distinguish them from other species. We categorized four annual plant species as weedy and five as non-weedy based on their prevalence in disturbed and invaded environments. This designation was tested in a field trial where we scattered equal numbers of viable seeds in 20 different plots and monitored density and cover over three months. The ...

Finding the best management strategies to restore grassland diversity and achieve a compromise between agricultural use biodiversity protection is global challenge. This paper reports novel data relating impacts of 19 years restoration managements predicted increase botanical within reseeded upland temperate common in less favoured areas Europe. The treatments imposed were: continuous sheep gra...

Rapid human population growth and habitat modification in the western United States has led to the formation of urban and exurban rangelands. Many of these rangelands are also home to populations of black-tailed prairie dogs (Cynomys ludovicianus). Our study aimed to compare the vegetation composition of an urban and exurban rangeland, and explore the role that prairie dogs play in these system...