Grazing effects on vegetation: biodiversity, management and restoration – a new Special Issue in AVS

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A new Special Issue in Applied Vegetation Science focuses on the effects of grazing on vegetation.

Edited by Péter Török, Regina Lindborg, David Eldridge, and Robin Pakeman

The current Special Issue, with 16 papers and an editorial, highlights that the effects of grazing on vegetation are strongly context-dependent.…

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Increases and decreases in soil moisture in water-limited plant communities cause asymmetrical responses in biomass but not in diversity

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Prepared by Liesbeth van den Brink, Rafaella Canessa, Pierre Liancourt, Harald Neidhardt, Lohengrin A. Cavieres, Yvonne Oelmann, Maaike Y. Bader and Katja Tielbörger

Graphical abstract of the article (schema prepared by Rafaella Canessa)

Changes in rainfall, especially changes in the number of times it rains during a certain period and the amount of rain that falls, are likely to affect plant communities.…

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Community ionomics reveals a diversity of mineral nutrition in a species-rich shrubland on infertile soil

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Prepared by Juliette Hocedez, Karine Gotty, Vanessa Hequet, Sandrine Chay, Audrey Léopold, Stéphane Dray & Yohan Pillon

An example of “maquis minier” in New Caledonia near Yaté Barrage. Note the contrast between the diversity of plant species and habits above ground and the red substrate, which indicates low fertility (high concentration of iron oxides and limited organic matter).
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A deep learning framework for enhancing habitat identification based on species composition

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Prepared by César Leblanc, Pierre Bonnet, Maximilien Servajean, Milan Chytrý, Svetlana Aćić, Olivier Argagnon, Ariel Bergamini, Idoia Biurrun, Gianmaria Bonari, Juan A. Campos, Andraž Čarni, Renata Ćusterevska, Michele De Sanctis, Jürgen Dengler, Emmanuel Garbolino, Valentin Golub, Ute Jandt, Florian Jansen, Maria Lebedeva, Jonathan Lenoir, Jesper Erenskjold Moeslund, Aaron Pérez-Haase, Remigiusz Pielech, Jozef Šibík, Zvjezdana Stančić, Angela Stanisci, Grzegorz Swacha, Domas Uogintas, Kiril Vassilev, Thomas Wohlgemuth, and Alexis Joly

The hdm-framework is a generic, free, and open-source framework using artificial intelligence and combining plant species composition and environmental data to enhance vegetation classification.
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How a class of students published a paper about plant cover’s relationship to biomass

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The post provided by Xiaobin Pan, Nathan Ferris and Jan Lepš

Biomass sampling in the Ohrazeni wet meadow experimental site (48°57’N, 14°36’E). Thanks to all the students who participated in biomass sampling and sorting over the years. Photo credit: unidentified student from Jan Lepš’s working group, who was able to climb the tree

This post refers to the article The convex relationship between plant cover and biomass: Implications for assessing species and community properties by Pan et al.…

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Interactive effects of fire and grazing on vegetation structure and plant species composition in subtropical grasslands

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Prepared by Fernando F. Furquim, John D. Scasta & Gerhard E. Overbeck

(a) Landscape overview, (b) fire and (c) fire + grazing treatments, during August/2019 prescribed fires, in subtropical grassland (Santiago, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil). Photos credit: Fernando Furquim

Worldwide, fire and grazing and their interaction are recognized as the main drivers of grassland plant composition and vegetation structure.…

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Vegetation Classification and Survey (VCS): Editors’ Choice of the second quarter of 2024

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Prepared by Jürgen Dengler (on behalf of the VCS Chief Editor)

Modelled current and future distribution of zonal vegetation types along a 1400 km transect in Namibia. Source: Naftal et al. (2024).

Vegetation Classification and Survey (VCS) has completed the second quarter of the 5th volume, containing in total five articles (see list below).…

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Elevational shifts in tree community composition in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest related to climate change

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Rodrigo Scarton Bergamin, Vinicius Bastazini and their colleagues summarized their findings from a recent paper published in the Journal of Vegetation Science (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jvs.13289), revealing that climate-driven species migration patterns and community composition changes in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest are highly variable.…

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Fire and grazing interaction in a subhumid grassland: effects on a dominant tussock grass

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Prepared by Luis López-Mársico, Felipe Lezama & Alice Altesor

Appearance of a Uruguayan grassland dominated by Saccharum angustifolium, showing flowering culms and a high accumulation of standing dead biomass due to the absence of recent burning (left); and three different moments of the burning experiment (right).
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