Conservation and Restoration of Pluvious Temperate Semi-natural Grassland in East Asia
2009
Shoji, Atsushi, National Agricultural Research Center for Hokkaido Region, Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan
Semi-natural grasslands had been maintained through communal extensive use traditionally with grazing, mowing and/or burning in most area of the agricultural regions in Japan. However, they are in a critical situation of extinction as a result of the industrialization of agriculture and animal husbandry in rural areas. This study endeavored to restore the semi-natural grasslands out of use in the northern and the southwestern Japan. In Hokkaido, the northernmost main island of the country, semi-natural grasslands has been diminishing because of the decline of horse grazing and the conversion into sown artificial grasslands. Mowing and fertilizing were examined as alternative ways to sustain the vegetation of subarctic semi-natural grassland in case horse grazing would have been absolutely ceased. This study suggested that mowing in summer season significantly enhanced relative dominance of a hygrophilous grassland-endemic iris, the target species for conservation in the region, with inhibiting overgrowth of forbs and enhancing moisture of surface soil, and that fertilizing was not effective to increase the dominance of the iris. In Aso, the only district where semi-natural grassland occupies large area still now, Kyushu main island southwestern Japan, investigations for grassland restoration program at disused grasslands were conducted. Mowing experiments suggested that effective season for conservation of rare plant species is different by the phenology of the target species and that mowing in September or in biennial September, which is the traditional utilization form in the area, might be effective to maintain high species richness with inhibiting exotic species invasion.
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