To graze or not to graze? Historical management of hay meadows in the Carpathian Mountains

Prepared by Monika Janišová

Distribution of the seven Carpathian dairy farming systems applied between 1850 and 1950 based on a synthesis of literature data. The yellow background represents areas with regular spring grazing of fields and hay meadows. The blue background indicates the destinations of long-distance transhumance in the lowland regions.
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Modeling the potential distribution of floristic assemblages of high Andean wetlands dominated by Juncaceae and Cyperaceae in the Argentine Puna

Prepared by Elvira Casagranda & Andrea E. Izquierdo

View of the “Acay Sur” vega during one of the vegetation sampling campaigns. Photo credits: A.E. Izquierdo

Plant communities are the main biological factor determining the functional ecosystem processes of the systems. In the Puna, a highland desert from the Andes, vegas are important wetlands representing real oases in the arid soil matrix.…

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Vegetation Classification and Survey (VCS): Editors’ Choice of the first quarter of 2023

The post provided by Jürgen Dengler (on behalf of all VCS Chief Editors)

Argentinian vega vegetation with motifs from the Editors’ Choice article by Casagranda and Izquierdo (2023).

Vegetation Classification and Survey (VCS) has completed the first quarter of the fourth volume, containing five articles (see list below).…

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Does above-average rainfall stimulate a recruitment pulse in semi-arid woodlands of southeastern Australia?

Prepared by Sally A. Kenny and Claire Moxham

Seedlings, young plants and mature trees within a Slender Cypress Pine semi-arid woodland at Wyperfeld National Park, southeastern Australia. Photo credit: Sally Kenny

Without management intervention, semi-arid woodlands are at risk of decline in southeastern Australia.…

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Biomass fine-scale variation is predictive of functional composition and diversity in grazed grassland

Prepared by Nicolas Caram, Felipe Casalás, Marcelo O. Wallau, Pablo Soca, Valério D. Pillar, Monica Cadenazzi & Pablo Boggiano

Sampling at the Experimental Station “Bernardo Rosengurtt” of Faculty of Agronomy, Universidad de la República (32°21’59” S, 54°26’37” W). Photo credit: Felipe Casalás

The adjustment of livestock number per unit area affects the aboveground biomass and its variation in space and time, which is a tool in grassland management for biodiversity conservation and livestock production.…

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Should we sample vegetation following statistical rules or botanists’ experience? Possibly both!

The post provided by Nicola Alessi, Gianmaria Bonari and Piero Zannini

Italian forest types examples: A) Warm Temperate forest type represented by Quercus ilex-dominated forests in Tuscany; B) Temperate forest type represented by Fagus sylvatica-dominated forests in Northern Apennines; C) Cold Temperate forest type represented by Picea abies-dominated forests in the Alps.
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The power of seeds: the resilience of a restored plant community to fire

The post provided by Ebony Cowan

Smoke tent trail stimulating germination of the soil seedbank in restored Banksia woodlands. Photo credit: Ebony Cowan

This post refers to the article Soil seedbank development of smoke-responsive plant species in a 23-year restoration chronosequence and implications for resilience to fire by Cowan and colleagues published in Applied Vegetation Science (https://doi.org/10.1111/avsc.12713…

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