How livestock farming practices 'transform' grassland biodiversity into bundles of ecosystem services

Understanding the link between biodiversity and the level of provision of ecosystem services is complex because their relationship is not linear or unidirectional. This is due in particular to the fact that biodiversity is often quantified by species richness than by functional diversity. Looking at biodiversity in terms of different metrics is a way of gaining a better understanding of this relationship.
The project will study how biodiversity, assessed under different metrics (specific richness, functional and equitability, rarity), is "transformed" into bundles of effective ecosystem services, via relevant agropastoral practices. For example, grasslands provide many ecosystem services such as the production of fodder, maintenance of habitat for pollinators, or provision of open and diverse landscapes. PRABIES will focus also on the ‘climate adaptation service’, assessed through the capability of ecosystems to adapt to climate change and variability, by analyzing how diverse grasslands can buffer the effects of climate hazards (drought, heatwaves) and reassemble to provide a range of relevant ecosystem services, under a new climate. It will make it possible to propose management practices to improve the delivery to these ecosystem services. Indeed, many conventional technical adaptation solutions are based on intensification to build up fodder stocks (use of irrigated maize silage, early mowing and systematic fertilization), which can in turn negatively affect biodiversity.
PRABIES will use and complete a database containing proxies of ecosystem services, botanical data, soil, fodder quality and practices of farmers. This database will be completed by the climate adaptation service in order to study how grassland plant communities can reassemble, to ensure a satisfactory level of forage production. PRABIES will analyze the progression in recent years of Mediterranean species in the Massif Central, taking into account practices and their impact on fodder production and its stability. The perceptions regarding this type of ecosystem service will be finally studied in order to assess the operational relevance of adapting to a new climate through grassland biodiversity.

Participants

INRAE units involved

• Département ECODIV
  • Ecologie Prairiale Research Unit Grassland Ecosystem
• Département ECOSOCIO
  • Herbivore Joint Research Unit
• Département PHASE
  • UMR Herbivore

Partenaires

• National Botanic Conservatory of the Massif Central