Miljöstöd i odlingslandskapet : Återinventering av Västra Götalands läns odlingslandskap för att bedöma miljöstödets effekt på kärlväxternas förekomst och abundans

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this report was to determine whether the environmental support in the agricultural landscape has influenced the presence and spread of vascular plants. The study was performed by revisiting a total of 50 grasslands located in Västra Götalands county. The grasslands were last monitored in 2002-2008. Half of the grasslands had been given environmental support for special values during 2021 and half had not been given environmental support during 2020. Each grassland was searched for indicator species. The collected data was compared with the data collected in 2002-2008. Initial findings show that the presence and spread of positive indicator species had decreased for grasslands with environmental support. For grasslands without environmental support no significant change could be observed regarding the presence or spread of positive indicator species. The presence and spread of negative indicator species had increased for grasslands with and without environmental support. Further comparison of these findings suggests that grasslands without environmental support had a higher increase of the spread of negative indicator species compared with grasslands with environmental support. These findings suggests that the environmental support is not truly enough to preserve the biodiversity in flora at Västra Götalands county’s grasslands over time. However, the findings also show that the environmental support slows down the spreading of negative indicator plants.