Preprint Article Version 1 Preserved in Portico This version is not peer-reviewed

Cattle grazing as a driver of landscape revitalisation in the rural-urban interface subjected to agricultural abandonment

Andrzej Bobiec
* ORCID logo ,
Taofeek O Muraina
ORCID logo ,
Agnieszka Dołęga
,
Renata Tobiasz-Salach
,
Grzegorz Zaguła
,
Paweł Wolański
,
Sebastian Wójcik
ORCID logo ,
Łukasz Kuberski
ORCID logo
Version 1 : Received: 30 August 2023 / Approved: 31 August 2023 / Online: 31 August 2023 (15:06:14 CEST)

How to cite: Bobiec, A.; Muraina, T.O.; Dołęga, A.; Tobiasz-Salach, R.; Zaguła, G.; Wolański, P.; Wójcik, S.; Kuberski, Ł. Cattle grazing as a driver of landscape revitalisation in the rural-urban interface subjected to agricultural abandonment. Preprints 2023, 2023082182. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202308.2182.v1 Bobiec, A.; Muraina, T.O.; Dołęga, A.; Tobiasz-Salach, R.; Zaguła, G.; Wolański, P.; Wójcik, S.; Kuberski, Ł. Cattle grazing as a driver of landscape revitalisation in the rural-urban interface subjected to agricultural abandonment. Preprints 2023, 2023082182. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202308.2182.v1

Abstract

Recent Socio-economic changes resulted to mass abandonment of agricultural lands in Central-Eastern Europe. This leads to landscapes homogenisation, especially the disappearance of semi-open habitats of the farmland-woodland interface. The information on potentials of transforming feral, abandoned landscapes to wood-pastures is limited. We studied the ecological features and silvopastoral benefits of a landscape subjected to intensive cattle grazing after ~20 years of abandonment, i.e. the mosaic of habitats, cattle’s preference for habitats and for arboreal forages. The nutritional characteristics of arboreal forage and herbaceous forage were compared. After the initial increase in the landscape’s woodland share, cattle grazing halted further woody succession and stabilised the landscape structure, with treeless grassland occupying 49% of the landscape (most preferred by cattle with regard to the time spent), followed by treed grassland (19%), pioneering birch/alder groves (13%), riparian vegetation (12%, least preferred by cattle), and close-canopy woods (6%). The consumption intensity of arboreal forages was on about 4.5 folds higher than that of herbaceous forage. Our study proved that the grazing herd of arobust cattle breed can turn a feral, post-agricultural land into a working wood pasture, consisting of interconnected open grasslands and various facets of woodland, which seldom occur in contemporary high forests. We advocate for the transition management of abandoned farmlands towards integrated silvopastoral landscapes for sustainable provision of multiple ecosystem services that cannot be provided by segregated agriculture and forestry.

Keywords

Carpathian foothills; ecosystem services; grazing ecology; land abandonment; wood-pasture; tree hay

Subject

Biology and Life Sciences, Agricultural Science and Agronomy

Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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