The glorious diversity of grasslands: 3. Services provided from farm to landscape in Aveyron
2021
DURU, Michel | Meillet, Anne | Theau, Jean Pierre | Pomeon, Thomas | Therond, Olivier
Previous articles (Duru et Therond, 2018; Duru et al., 2019) lay the conceptual and methodological foundation for an analysis of the range of goods and services provided by grasslands to agriculture and society. This articles presents an illustration of the operationalization of the proposed approach at the plot and landscape levels.Simplified botanical surveys were used to characterize grasslands (permanent, temporary, less than or more than 5 years old; n=208) on six cattle farms in the north and west of the Aveyron department in terms of growth temporality (early vs. late, spread vs. seasonal) and the level of services they provide. It is shown that temporary grasslands of less than 5 years of age, with a higher average percentage of leguminous plants, present the most extreme growth temporalities (early or late, and important spreading).The evaluation of some services (pollination, weed control, soil stabilization and carbon sequestration) provided by grasslands at the scale of the Aveyron department was done by mobilizing algorithms establishing the link between spatial distribution of the different types of grasslands and services to interpret the map of land use at the grain level of the CAP blocks. This mapping shows a high average level of services, but differences according to the share of grasslands less than 5 years old. In general, the Aveyron department presents a diversity of grasslands that allows to fulfill a diversity of functions at the farm scale and a mosaic of permanent and temporary grasslands at the landscape scale that suggests the provision of input services for crops.
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