Management measures and evaluation of their impact on meadow wetland biodiversity
Wetlands are unique biotopes that provide many ecosystem services in the landscape and are often important centres of biodiversity. Today, however, most wetlands are threatened by significant degradation or complete loss of some sites, mainly due to inappropriate agricultural management, general drying of the landscape, and increasing trophic levels. A major threat to these biotopes is overgrowth of various plants, including invasive and expansive species. Felling, mowing, and grazing are used in many places as the most appropriate form of their management. Although the effect of these measures on the biodiversity of different groups of organisms has been tested, both in Czech Republic and abroad, the effect on the biodiversity of the entire community is still unknown in our geographical conditions. At the same time, there is a complete lack of methods to systematically evaluate the effects of management measures on biodiversity on the scale of the entire wetland community, including methods for comparing areas with implemented management and control areas within one location.
The aim of the project is (i) to test suitable measures (cattle grazing, mowing, creation of ponds) leading to the reduction of large areas of homogeneous vegetation, the creation of differently structured vegetation growth, the suppression of invasive/expansive plant species, the creation of new habitats and an increase in biodiversity of the project's degraded site; (ii) to monitor areas with implemented measures and areas without intervention and evaluate the biodiversity of wetland communities; (iii) to assess the impact of implemented measures on biodiversity; (iv) to develop recommendations for the application of appropriate management to other meadow wetland locations that are threatened by long-term absence of care and to form outputs that can be used by public administration to significantly increase the effectiveness of wetland management; (v) to provide a validated methodology to assess the biodiversity of wetland communities.
