Will small-scale ploughing increase the plant diversity of species-poor grasslands?

The sowing of species-poor and allochthonous grassland seed mixtures, the abandonment of traditional mowing and pasturing, and the intensification of agriculture, has led to a loss of biodiversity in the agricultural landscape of Central Europe. To restore biodiversity of species-poor grasslands in the Podyj & iacute; National Park, we used small-scale ploughing as an alternative disturbance management supporting plant colonization from the local species pool at twelve localities with different environmental conditions and management history. The main aim of our study was to evaluate changes in the flora and grassland vegetation following artificially induced disturbance in the form of different ploughing regimes. We compared plant species richness, plant species composition and vegetation changes between plots situated in annually ploughed, once ploughed and unploughed grasslands. Although we did not observe any significant changes in the total number of plant species among the treatments in the first years of succession, we recorded several rare and endangered plant species that appeared after ploughing. On the other hand, invasive species were not present in large numbers except at one site. Our results suggest that small-scale disturbances in the form of ploughing could be a suitable way to support and maintain local biodiversity mainly of dry or species-poor grasslands with a dominance of grasses whereas the ploughing of mesic and nutrient-rich grasslands leads to ruderal vegetation with Artemisia vulgaris, Elymus repens or even invasive Solidago gigantea.