Soil organic matter (SOM) provides crucial storage for carbon but also contains a majority of soil nitrogen. Land use intensity (LUI) may affect the particulate and mineral-associated SOM pools having repercussions on the carbon and nitrogen storage and cycling. Soil organic matter dynamics and composition plays a key role for the extent of these processes, yet its interactions remain poorly...
Montane grasslands play a vital role in regional water cycling and agricultural productivity, yet their response to climate change remains insufficiently understood. This study presents findings from a multi-year climate manipulation experiment in the Austrian Alps, where high-precision lysimeters combined with warming (+3 °C) and elevated CO₂ concentrations (+300 ppm) were used to assess...
The soil microbiome plays a pivotal role in biogeochemical cycles, particularly in carbon and nitrogen cycling, which are central to the regulation of Earth's climate. As global climate change accelerates, understanding whether the soil microbiome functions primarily as a mitigator or as a contributor to this threat is increasingly critical.
Recent advances in metagenomics, isotope tracing,...
Background: Agricultural grasslands are often managed intensively, influencing soil properties and local macro and micro- communities. The impacts of such anthropogenic changes are not limited to host diversity but can also affect diversity of host-associated microbial assemblages. These changes can have cascading effects across ecosystems, resulting in significant community alterations and...
Over centuries mountain pasture has been a traditional way of agriculture in the alpine regions in Europe. This seasonal grazing led to species- and nutrient rich alpine grassland combined with human maintenance even below the tree line. Due to societal change and economic pressure within the last 50 years lots of those mountain pastures had been abandoned. So, the study area Brunnenkopfalm in...
Clonal demographic traits play important roles in regulating community dynamics. Yet, it remains unclear how the responses of these clonal traits to drought might depend on previous drought exposure, and how drought responses vary among grasslands. We conducted a repeated drought experiment across four grasslands along an aridity gradient in the Mongolian plateau. We assessed the effects of...
The National Climate for Climate Services (NCCS) is currently implementing a programme aimed at developing decision-making tools for dealing with climate change in Switzerland. As a contribution to “Ecosystem Services”, one of the projects included in the programme, Agroscope is setting up an interactive information platform that will allow users to display the projected impacts of climate...
Grassland represents the most important land-use system in European alpine regions. Various utili-sation intensities caused by different site conditions, small-scaled structures and multiple cuts per growing season impede a systematic estimation of yield and forage quality. During the growth of grassland, the biomass increases, while at the same time, the forage quality decreases with...
Grasslands are widespread ecosystems that play a vital role in providing multiple ecosystem functions, particularly as sources of fodder. Despite their ecological and economic importance, knowledge about grasslands remains limited due to their high heterogeneity in use and management and, consequently, their species composition. This is particularly the case in regions such as southern...
Spatially explicit information on grassland traits (e.g., biomass, plant N content) can support the optimization of grassland management. Previous studies demonstrated the potential of remote sensing to retrieve different plant traits in grasslands using multispectral and hyperspectral sensors. However, most of these studies used empirical approaches and are therefore hardly transferable to...
Mountain grasslands have been shaped by human activities over centuries, contributing to the provision of crucial ecosystem services to people living inside and outside mountain regions. However, mountain grasslands in the European Alps nowadays are facing significant transformations, mainly due to changes in the grassland management as well as climatic variations. Spatially explicit and...
Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from agriculture significantly contribute to climate change, with drained peatlands representing a substantial and often overlooked source, especially in Germany where 95% are drained for agriculture. Existing life cycle assessments (LCAs) of milk production often underestimate environmental impacts by neglecting these soil emissions. This study quantified the...
Fertilization plays an important role in grassland management and decisions are usually made at farm level. Data on fertilizer application rates are crucial for an accurate assessment of the effects of grassland management on ecosystem services. However, these are generally not available on farm/field scale. To close this gap, we present an agent-based model for Fertilization In Grasslands...
Dear Editor,
I am pleased to submit an abstract for consideration of poster presentation in the International Grassland Conference 2025. The abstract is entitled “Estimating vegetation traits in pre-Alpine grasslands by combining multi-annual of in-situ data and UAV Imagery”.
Thank you very much for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Batnyambuu
Alpine and pre-Alpine grasslands represent ecologically rich and culturally important landscapes - shaped by long-standing human–nature interactions. By applying surveys in (pre-)Alpine Bavaria, we found that farmers and citizens not only attribute instrumental and intrinsic values, but predominantly relational values to grasslands. The results show that grasslands and their ecosystem services...
