Institute of Landscape Ecology SAS, branch Nitra, Akademická 2, 949 10 Nitra, Slovakia.
Poloniny National Park Administration, ul. Mieru 193, 067 61 Stakčín, Slovakia.
Sci Total Environ. 2017 Dec 31;609:896-905. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.07.066. Epub 2017 Aug 7.
The political change from socialism to democracy in countries of Central and Eastern Europe at the end of the 20th century induced broad changes in agriculture mostly due to land ownership changes and strong reduction of subsidies to agriculture. This resulted in agricultural decline, including grassland abandonment, which influenced grassland biodiversity and conservation. Between 1999 and 2015 we studied the grasslands in the area depopulated in the early 1980's in the Poloniny National Park (NE Slovakia, Carpathian Mts.). The aim of the study was to examine influence of environmental factors and grassland management driven by the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) to plant community structure and taxonomical diversity. We identified altitude and soil properties as the main environmental factors: altitude determines climate gradient and probably also management intensity gradient and soil properties express soil fertility via A-horizon depth. We identified remarkable increase of proportion of managed grasslands from only 8% in 1999 to 40% in 2012-2015; other 7% of sampled grasslands were recently restored and prepared for future management. The average species richness in grasslands managed in 2012-2015 increased from 47.5 species per record in 1999 to 54.2 species in 2012-2015, the increase was found statistically significant. In 2012-2015, we observed statistically significant difference in the average species richness between managed (54.2) and abandoned grasslands (46.3). The agricultural subsidies of the CAP drive the grassland management in the study area. Therefore, we conclude that CAP enabled grassland biodiversity maintenance in significant part of the Poloniny National Park following start of its application in 2004 and above provided figures can be considered as indicators of the CAP effectiveness in our study area. However, the conservation of mountain meadows remains a challenge because of their poor accessibility.
20 世纪末，中东欧社会主义国家向民主政治的转变，导致农业发生了广泛的变化，主要是由于土地所有权的变化和对农业的大幅削减补贴。这导致了农业的衰退，包括草地的废弃，这影响了草地生物多样性和保护。1999 年至 2015 年间，我们研究了 20 世纪 80 年代初人口减少的波兰尼国家公园（斯洛伐克东北部，喀尔巴阡山脉）地区的草地。该研究的目的是研究环境因素和共同农业政策（CAP）驱动的草地管理对植物群落结构和分类多样性的影响。我们确定了海拔和土壤特性是主要的环境因素：海拔决定了气候梯度，可能还决定了管理强度梯度，而土壤特性通过 A 层的深度来表达土壤肥力。我们发现，从 1999 年的 8%到 2012-2015 年的 40%，管理草地的比例显著增加；抽样草地中还有 7%是最近恢复的，为未来的管理做准备。2012-2015 年管理的草地平均物种丰富度从 1999 年的每记录 47.5 个物种增加到 2012-2015 年的 54.2 个物种，增加具有统计学意义。2012-2015 年，我们观察到管理（54.2）和废弃草地（46.3）之间的平均物种丰富度存在统计学上的显著差异。共同农业政策的农业补贴推动了研究区域的草地管理。因此，我们得出结论，自 2004 年共同农业政策开始实施以来，它在波兰尼国家公园的很大一部分地区维持了草地生物多样性，并认为上述数据可以作为共同农业政策在研究区域有效性的指标。然而，由于高山草甸难以到达，其保护仍然是一个挑战。
