Abandoned military training areas are recognized as biodiversity hotspots. Here, threatened species benefit from low nutrient levels and a heterogeneous habitat mosaic that includes early successional stages created by military training activities. However, after abandonment, these areas are encroached by forest, and their conservation value may be lost without active management. Management can be approached in various ways, and it is important to determine which strategies are most beneficial for biodiversity. Here, we conducted a large-scale survey of vascular plants, grasshoppers, butterflies, and birds in more than 40 abandoned military training areas across Czechia, a country in Central Europe. We tested the responses of each taxon, as well as multitaxonomic diversity, to six management types: woody plant cutting, mowing for agriculture, mowing for conservation, grazing for agriculture, grazing for conservation, and vehicle rides. After accounting for spatial autocorrelation, we found that vehicle rides were the only management type positively related to the multitaxonomic diversity of threatened species. Additionally, it supported the abundance of threatened birds and the total species richness of grasshoppers. Although other management options also showed conservation benefits for some taxa (e.g., woody plant cutting for threatened grasshoppers), none had such a broad positive impact across taxa, and some had opposing effects (e.g., grazing for conservation benefited threatened butterflies but negatively affected threatened grasshoppers). While management decisions must always be tailored to local goals and conditions, we propose vehicle rides as a promising tool for managing biodiversity-rich areas where threatened species depend on early successional stages.

Beleco z s Prague Czechia

Department of Ecology Faculty of Environmental Sciences Czech University of Life Sciences Prague Prague Czechia

Institute for Environmental Studies Faculty of Science Charles University Prague Czechia; Beleco z s Prague Czechia

Institute for Environmental Studies Faculty of Science Charles University Prague Czechia; Department of Zoology Faculty of Science Palacký University in Olomouc Olomouc Czechia

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