Grassland biodiversity: habitat types, ecological processes and conservation status

Abstract

Under the global change scenario, it is increasingly important to monitor habitat and ecosystem attributes to prevent their loss and degradation. While different approaches have been proposed to achieve this goal, little effort has been devoted in linking the monitoring of habitat attributes with the ecosystem services provided. The present research was aimed at filling this gap by assessing the relationship between environmental and biotic attributes of grassland communities and the provisioning of four ecosystem services (i.e., biodiversity, productivity, climate regulation and pollination). Our approach revealed that different community attributes can be related to the supply of different ecosystem services. Specifically, it was possible to identify threshold values in the community attributes (e.g., vascular species cover and richness) corresponding to different values of ecosystem services. A methodological framework that considers different and standardized indicators is useful to pinpoint better strategies to biodiversity conservation, in order to maximise ecosystem services provisioning to human well-being.