Artrika vägkanter - hur påverkas de av slåtter och underhållsdikning?

Sammanfattning: ABSTRACT This study is an exam work at the Department of Ecology at the Swedish Agricultural University, Ultuna, Uppsala. The field work was performed in the counties of Uppsala and Västmanland. Grassland areas, exposed to annual mowing, are known to host a variety of rare and red-listed vascular species. The area of these grassland are, however, decreasing in the landscape due to modern farming. The fact that roadside verges maintain regular mowing has proven to be a successful concept for many rare vascular plant species in this habitat. Vascular plants along roadside verges at the State road network were inventoried due to a government mandate during 1995 and 1996. As a result “Species rich roadsides” were pointed out. After the identification of “species rich roadsides”, management recommendations were presented to ensure the survival of the found species. Maintenance-ditching is, however, necessary to maintain the function of the road and can spoil the well-established flora. Mosses are earlier not studied in roadside verges and might also be influenced from maintenance ditching. The aim of this work is to study how mowing and maintenance ditching affects vascular plants and mosses. Four different roadside verges were studied. The results showed that a roadside verge that recently (one year earlier) has been exposed to maintenance-ditching has fewer vascular plant species than a roadside with an established flora (no maintaining ditching has been done for long time). However, the roadside verge that was exposed to maintenance-ditching three years before the inventory showed the same species richness as the established roadside. However, analysis showed that most of the species found in the established roadsides occur mostly in regularly mowed areas. Species in the roadside verges that has been exposed to maintenance-ditching are found in several environments. The result of the inventory of mosses showed that maintenance-ditching can be positive for the number of species established. A roadside verge in Västmanland, exposed to maintenance-ditching three years before inventory, showed considerably larger amount of species than the rest of studied areas. An explanation can be the fact that mosses often are not able to establish among vascular plants.