Results
We detected 84 species in the samples consisting of 24 graminoids (8
short-lived and 16 perennial), and 60 forbs (36 short-lived and 24
perennial). Grazing intensity had a significant effect on green biomass
+ litter, green biomass, litter, the biomass of perennial forbs,
perennial graminoids, short-lived forbs as well as on the species
richness and disturbance (Table 4). The species richness at the fourth
and fifth level of intensity was significantly higher than that of the
second level, and we detected the highest richness at the fourth level
of grazing intensity (Figure 1A). For disturbance values, the fifth
level was significantly higher compared to all other levels (Figure 1B).
We detected a humped-back relationship between the amount of green
biomass and the species richness (Figure 2).
We also detected significant differences for green biomass + litter,
litter (highest scores at the first level of intensity). For litter, we
detected higher scores at the first and second level of intensity
compared to the other levels (Figure 3A, B, C); moss + lichen biomass
did not show a significant difference along the intensity levels (Table
2; Figure 3D). Perennial forb biomass showed the highest scores at the
fourth level of intensity (Figure 4A). The perennial graminoids’ biomass
was significantly higher at the second level of intensity than at the
fourth and fifth levels (Figure 4B). We found no significant difference
in the biomass of short-lived forbs between the first and fourth level
of intensity while that of at the fifth level was significantly higher
compared to the other levels (Figure 4C). The biomass of short-lived
graminoids did not show significant differences (Table 4; Figure 4D).
The CCA identified only two significant predictors for the species
compositional patterns : soil humus content and disturbance tolerance,
but these two predictors were weakly correlated with each other (Figure
5). We found no clear separation of pastures grazed with different
levels of intensity based on the biomass composition and sites with
increasing levels of grazing intensity were also not separated along the
predictors. The samples of the different sites did not show clear
separation along either the axis of green biomass quantity or the
species richness also in Figure 2.