Plantdiversitet på svenska slåtterängar : En GIS-analys med kulturella perspektiv

Sammanfattning: High plant species diversity depends on a landscape that provides enough habitual space, functional connectivity and heterogeneity. Habitat destruction and land use change is recognized as the biggest threat to biodiversity of today. The Swedish landscape has not only undergone dramatic changes in land-use the last 60 years, it also contains some of the last fragments in Europe of the highly valuable hay-meadows. Many of the Swedish hay-meadows are considered to hold high ecological values and are protected by Natura 2000 regulations. Yet there are no systematic conservation strategies for the hay-meadows and most of the work is done by volunteers. This study aims to further investigate how the surrounding landscape affects the total plant species richness on Swedish hay-meadows. A local scale GIS-analysis on landscapes surrounding 21 hay-meadows across two time steps was carried out. The historical land-use was compared with the present landscapes and with species data from the same areas. Results show that the forest cover has grown almost 12% in 60 years. There is a negative correlation between forest and the plant species richness of both time steps. The total area of arable fields has dropped 19%, although no statistical correlation with the plant species richness of either time step was found. The ex-arable fields of 1950 however, did show a negative impact, both alone and together with open pasture. Open pasture has decreased 17%, although no statistical correlation was found between this land-cover category and plant species richness. The overall results indicate that the historical land-use on the local scale is of greater importance on the current plant species richness than present land-use. This should be considered within landscape planning and when designing conservation strategies.