Details zur Publikation

Kategorie Textpublikation
Referenztyp Zeitschriften
DOI 10.1111/btp.13269
Lizenz creative commons licence
Titel (primär) Enhancing ecosystem services through collaborative grass removal and fire exclusion in the Eastern Ghats
Autor Saneesh, C.S. ORCID logo ; Anjaneyulu, P.; Kumar, M.A.; Sharma, H.; Rao, B.R.P.; Ladouceur, E.; Knight, T.M.
Quelle Biotropica
Erscheinungsjahr 2024
Department iDiv; PHYDIV; SIE
Band/Volume 56
Heft 1
Seite von 4
Seite bis 17
Sprache englisch
Topic T5 Future Landscapes
Daten-/Softwarelinks https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8338233
Supplements https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/action/downloadSupplement?doi=10.1111%2Fbtp.13269&file=btp13269-sup-0001-AppendixS1.docx
Keywords commons; Cymbopogon; ecosystem services; experimental removal; mesic savanna; native invasive; village institutions
Abstract Human activities in mesic savanna ecosystems have resulted in plant communities that are heavily dominated by fire-tolerant grass species, are less diverse, and offer fewer ecosystem services such as palatable plant biomass. Experimental studies manipulating fire and grass presence have mostly been conducted in ecosystems invaded by exotic grass species. However, these experiments are also relevant to ecosystems that have become dominated by native grass species due to changes in human activities. Our study compared three different management treatments in the Eastern Ghats of India, where mesic savanna ecosystems are highly dominated by the unpalatable native Cymbopogon grasses, specifically: (1) control (both Cymbopogon grasses and fire are present), (2) fire exclusion, and (3) manual removal of Cymbopogon grasses and fire exclusion. We found that both grass removal and fire exclusion were necessary to significantly increase palatable herbaceous plant biomass and species diversity, and that species diversity responses were only significant at larger spatial grains of investigation. High site-to-site variation in the grass removal and fire exclusion treatment prevented us from detecting significant differences in species composition across treatments, even though particular palatable grass species benefited from the treatment. Our study is in line with research from other mesic savanna systems showing that fire management alone is not sufficient to transition ecosystems to a desired or historical state. We demonstrate how normally costly management practices, such as manual removal of dominant grasses, can be reasonably achieved through collaboration between scientists, community governed village institutions, and government and nongovernment agencies in socioecological systems.
dauerhafte UFZ-Verlinkung https://www.ufz.de/index.php?en=20939&ufzPublicationIdentifier=28015
Saneesh, C.S., Anjaneyulu, P., Kumar, M.A., Sharma, H., Rao, B.R.P., Ladouceur, E., Knight, T.M. (2024):
Enhancing ecosystem services through collaborative grass removal and fire exclusion in the Eastern Ghats
Biotropica 56 (1), 4 - 17 10.1111/btp.13269