CONTEXT: Historical land use is thought to have influenced plant community diversity, composition and function through the local persistence of taxa that reflect ecological conditions of the past. OBJECTIVES: We tested for the effects of historical land use on contemporary plant species richness, composition, and ecological preferences in the grassland vegetation of Central Europe. METHODS: We analyzed 6975 vegetation plots sampled between 1946 and 2021 in dry, mesic, and wet grasslands in the borderland between Austria, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia. Using 1819-1853 military maps, we assigned each plot to a historical land-use category (arable land, forest, grassland, settlement, permanent crop, and water body). We modeled the response of species richness, composition, and plant ecological preferences to the historical land use including contemporary covariates. RESULTS: Nineteenth-century land use explained little overall variation in species richness and composition, whereas more variation was explained by contemporary environmental conditions. However, we found that ecological preferences of some species were associated with specific historical land uses. Specifically, species more frequently occurring in historically forested grasslands showed lower light and disturbance frequency indicator values, while those associated with former settlements displayed higher disturbance severity indicator values. CONCLUSIONS: We conclude that signatures of specific land-use conversions, including the restoration of grasslands in human-impacted areas, may still be detectable in grasslands even 200 years into the future. However, while local historical land use influences the occurrence of some species based on their ecological preferences, these effects do not significantly influence community species richness and total composition. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10980-024-02016-6.

• Keywords
• Bioindication, Disturbance, Ellenberg indicator values, European history, Hemeroby, Historical landscape, Vascular plant,
• Publication type
• Journal Article MeSH

Ungulate populations are increasing across Europe with important implications for forest plant communities. Concurrently, atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition continues to eutrophicate forests, threatening many rare, often more nutrient-efficient, plant species. These pressures may critically interact to shape biodiversity as in grassland and tundra systems, yet any potential interactions in forests remain poorly understood. Here, we combined vegetation resurveys from 52 sites across 13 European countries to test how changes in ungulate herbivory and eutrophication drive long-term changes in forest understorey communities. Increases in herbivory were associated with elevated temporal species turnover, however, identities of winner and loser species depended on N levels. Under low levels of N-deposition, herbivory favored threatened and small-ranged species while reducing the proportion of non-native and nutrient-demanding species. Yet all these trends were reversed under high levels of N-deposition. Herbivores also reduced shrub cover, likely exacerbating N effects by increasing light levels in the understorey. Eutrophication levels may therefore determine whether herbivory acts as a catalyst for the "N time bomb" or as a conservation tool in temperate forests.

• MeSH
• Biodiversity MeSH
• Herbivory * MeSH
• Nitrogen MeSH
• Forests * MeSH
• Plants MeSH
• Publication type
• Journal Article MeSH
• Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't MeSH
• Names of Substances
• Nitrogen MeSH