Human-induced disturbances to ecosystems cause a direct loss of biodiversity, and also alter the inherent processes that shape ecosystems even after the main disturbance has ceased. Therefore, is it important to understand the ongoing consequences of past and present land use practices on both above- and belowground components of agroecosystems. Our study takes a detailed investigation of what shapes communities in semi-natural grasslands under long-term management as either pastures or meadows. We investigated the relative importance of land use (land management (LM) and land use intensity (LUI)) and abiotic conditions (soil, topographic, climatic) across five grassland sites in central Germany in explaining species occurrence patterns of vascular plants and soil fungi. Analyses included a hierarchical joint-species distribution modeling approach to uncover the role of possible drivers shaping the local communities. Our results show that abiotic factors are of particularly high importance compared to LM and LUI for both vascular plant and soil fungal communities. In general, the relative importance of explanatory variables was similar across both taxon groups, however, for plant communities, local climate conditions were more important, while for fungal communities the soil variables (e.g., soil acidity and fertility including soil carbon and potassium concentrations) played a more prominent role. Species-specific responses to the respective variables showed some similarity across the taxon groups, however less so than expected given the long legacy of past LM. Here we found that approximately 50% of the plant and fungi species had clear LM preferences and responses to LUI. More plant species were positively related to pasture than meadow management, while the opposite was found for fungal species. Our findings advance the understanding of how abiotic conditions and human land use impact local species communities in managed semi-natural grasslands, aiding further research and policy development for conserving multitrophic diversity within these biodiversity rich habitats. Our results highlight the importance of controlling for soil and climate in studying the impact of land use, and of considering the environmental context at both small and larger spatial grains when making land management and biodiversity conservation decisions. In so doing, the complexity of ecological processes within managed systems are accounted for and prioritized, promoting both conservation and ecological functioning of the agroecosystem.

Projections of global climate models suggest that ongoing human-induced climate change will lead to an increase in the frequency of severe droughts in many important agricultural regions of the world. Eco-hydrological models that integrate current understanding of the interacting processes governing soil water balance and plant growth may be useful tools to predict the impacts of climate change on crop production. However, the validation status of these models for making predictions under climate change is still unclear, since few suitable datasets are available for model testing. One promising approach is to test models using data obtained in “space-for-time” substitution experiments, in which samples are transferred among locations with contrasting current climates in order to mimic future climatic conditions. An important advantage of this approach is that the soil type is the same, so that differences in soil properties are not confounded with the influence of climate on water balance and crop growth. In this study, we evaluate the capability of a relatively simple eco-hydrological model to reproduce 6 years (2013–2018) of measurements of soil water contents, water balance components and grass production made in weighing lysimeters located at two sites within the TERENO-SoilCan network in Germany. Three lysimeters are located at an upland site at Rollesbroich with a cool, wet climate, while three others had been moved from Rollesbroich to a warmer and drier climate on the lower Rhine valley floodplain at Selhausen. Four of the most sensitive parameters in the model were treated as uncertain within the framework of the GLUE (generalized likelihood uncertainty estimation) methodology, while the remaining parameters in the model were set according to site measurements or data in the literature. The model satisfactorily reproduced the measurements at both sites, and some significant differences in the posterior ranges of the four uncertain parameters were found. In particular, the results indicated greater stomatal conductance as well an increase in dry-matter allocation below ground and a significantly larger maximum root depth for the three lysimeters that had been moved to Selhausen. As a consequence, the apparent water use efficiency (above-ground harvest divided by evapotranspiration) was significantly smaller at Selhausen than Rollesbroich. Data on species abundance on the lysimeters provide one possible explanation for the differences in the plant traits at the two sites derived from model calibration. These observations showed that the plant community at Selhausen had changed significantly in response to the drier climate, with a significant decrease in the abundance of herbs and an increase in the proportion of grass species. The differences in root depth and leaf conductance may also be a consequence of plasticity or acclimation at the species level. Regardless of the reason, we may conclude that such adaptations introduce significant additional uncertainties into model predictions of water balance and plant growth in response to climate change.

Ensuring ecosystem resilience is an intuitive approach to safeguard the functioning of ecosystems and hence the future provisioning of ecosystem services (ES). However, resilience is a multi‐faceted concept that is difficult to operationalize. Focusing on resilience mechanisms, such as diversity, network architectures or adaptive capacity, has recently been suggested as means to operationalize resilience. Still, the focus on mechanisms is not specific enough. We suggest a conceptual framework, resilience trinity, to facilitate management based on resilience mechanisms in three distinctive decision contexts and time‐horizons: 1) reactive, when there is an imminent threat to ES resilience and a high pressure to act, 2) adjustive, when the threat is known in general but there is still time to adapt management and 3) provident, when time horizons are very long and the nature of the threats is uncertain, leading to a low willingness to act. Resilience has different interpretations and implications at these different time horizons, which also prevail in different disciplines. Social ecology, ecology and engineering are often implicitly focussing on provident, adjustive or reactive resilience, respectively, but these different notions of resilience and their corresponding social, ecological and economic tradeoffs need to be reconciled. Otherwise, we keep risking unintended consequences of reactive actions, or shying away from provident action because of uncertainties that cannot be reduced. The suggested trinity of time horizons and their decision contexts could help ensuring that longer‐term management actions are not missed while urgent threats to ES are given priority.

Abstract Land management is known to have consequences for biodiversity; however, our synthetic understanding of its effects is limited due to highly variable results across studies, which vary in the focal taxa and spatial grain considered, as well as the response variables reported. Such synthetic knowledge is necessary for management of agroecosystems for high diversity and function. To fill this knowledge gap, we investigated the importance of scale‐dependent effects of land management (LM) (pastures vs. meadows), on plant and soil microbe diversity (fungi and bacteria) across 5 study sites in Central Germany. Analyses included diversity partitioning of species richness and related biodiversity components (i.e., density of individuals, species‐abundance distribution, and spatial aggregation) at two spatial grains (α‐ and γ‐scale, 1 m2 and 16 km2, respectively). Our results show scale‐dependent patterns in response to LM to be the norm rather than the exception and highlight the importance of measuring species richness and its underlying components at multiple spatial grains. Our outcomes provide new insight to the complexity of scale‐dependent responses within and across taxonomic groups. They suggest that, despite close associations between taxa, LM responses are not easily extrapolated across multiple spatial grains and taxa. Responses of biodiversity to LM are often driven by changes to evenness and spatial aggregation, rather than by changes in individual density. High‐site specificity of LM effects might be due to a variety of context‐specific factors, such as historic land management, identity of grazers, and grazing regime. Synthesis and applications: Our results suggest that links between taxa are not necessarily strong enough to allow for generalization of biodiversity patterns. These findings highlight the importance of considering multiple taxa and spatial grains when investigating LM responses, while promoting management practices that do the same and are tailored to local and regional conditions.

Core Ideas Pre‐alpine areas face more intense warming and extreme hydrological events than the global average. Climate and land management change have far‐reaching impacts on ecosystem functions and services. We have improved knowledge of water, energy, and matter exchange by long‐term observations and modeling. Global change has triggered several transformations, such as alterations in climate, land productivity, water resources, and atmospheric chemistry, with far reaching impacts on ecosystem functions and services. Finding solutions to climate and land cover change‐driven impacts on our terrestrial environment is one of the most important scientific challenges of the 21st century, with far‐reaching interlinkages to the socio‐economy. The setup of the German Terrestrial Environmental Observatories (TERENO) Pre‐Alpine Observatory was motivated by the fact that mountain areas, such as the pre‐alpine region in southern Germany, have been exposed to more intense warming compared with the global average trend and to higher frequencies of extreme hydrological events, such as droughts and intense rainfall. Scientific research questions in the TERENO Pre‐Alpine Observatory focus on improved process understanding and closing of combined energy, water, C, and N cycles at site to regional scales. The main long‐term objectives of the TERENO Pre‐Alpine Observatory include the characterization and quantification of climate change and land cover–management effects on terrestrial hydrology and biogeochemical processes at site and regional scales by joint measuring and modeling approaches. Here we present a detailed climatic and biogeophysical characterization of the TERENO Pre‐Alpine Observatory and a summary of novel scientific findings from observations and projects. Finally, we reflect on future directions of climate impact research in this particularly vulnerable region of Germany.

An improved regional assessment of the productivity of grasslands depends on comprehensive knowledge of the interactions between climatic drivers, vegetation properties and human activity. Managed grasslands in Europe display highly dynamic responses, which contribute to the challenge in making representative model simulations. Therefore, we investigated the relationships between vegetation state changes and productivity of meadow grasslands by comparing three study sites in Southern Germany (DE-Fen, DE-RbW, DE-Gwg), which are characterised by different management intensities and elevations. Weekly observations of vegetation height, leaf area, above-ground biomass and plant functional types were compared to estimates of the gross ecosystem productivity (GEP) determined from atmospheric surface exchange of carbon dioxide. We found that the cumulative GEP of these grasslands correlated positively with management intensity and negatively with elevation at the seasonal scale. The differences in above-ground vegetation properties among the three sites were most pronounced during spring and contributed to significant differences in annual carbon (200%) and nitrogen (4%) biomass yields. Nevertheless, when periods between harvests were considered individually, the relationship between GEP and above-ground biomass, leaf area and vegetation height appeared to follow unified patterns for all sites. In addition, our study highlights a substantial potential for systematic error based on the techniques used to quantify vegetation properties and a mitigating approach was evaluated that includes continuous automated observations of vegetation height. These outcomes can serve as a reference for modelling studies on the seasonal allocation of carbon and vegetation properties in managed humid temperate grassland systems.

The aim of TERENO (TERrestrial ENvironmental Observatories) is to collect long-term observation data on the hydrosphere, biosphere, pedosphere, lower atmosphere and anthroposphere along multiple spatial and temporal gradients in climate sensitive regions across Germany. The lysimeter-network SOILCan was installed as a part of TERENO between March and December 2010 within the four observatories. It represents a long-term large-scale experiment to study the effects of climate and management changes in terrestrial ecosystems, with particular focus on the impact of these changes on water, energy and matter fluxes into groundwater and atmosphere. SOILCan primarily focuses on soil hydrology, the carbon and nutrient cycle and plant species diversity. Time series measurements of states and fluxes at high spatial and temporal resolution in the soil and biosphere are combined with remote sensing information for the development and calibration of process-based models simulating impacts of climate change in soil processes at field to regional scale. Within the framework of SOILCan, 132 fully automated lysimeter systems were installed at 14 highly equipped experimental field sites across the four TERENO observatories. Relevant state variables of grassland and arable ecosystems are monitored characterizing climate, hydrology and matter fluxes into the atmosphere and within the hydrosphere as well as plant species diversity. Lysimeters are either being operated at or near their original sampling location or were transferred within or between the four TERENO observatories thereby using temperature and rainfall gradients to mimic future climatic conditions (space for time), which allow measuring impacts of climate change on terrestrial ecosystems. The lysimeters are cultivated as grassland (intensive, extensive and non-used) or arable land, the latter with a standardized crop rotation of winter wheat-winter barley-winter rye-oat. This publication describes the general design of the SOILCan experiment including a comprehensive description of the pedological characteristics of the different sites and presents a few exemplary results from the first years of operation.

Better integration of knowledge from ecological, social and economic science is necessary to advance the understanding and modelling of socio-ecological systems. To model ecosystem integrity (El) and ecosystem services (ES) at the landscape scale, assessment matrices are commonly used. These matrices assign capacities to provide different services to different land cover types. We revised such an existing matrix and examined the regional heterogeneity in El and ES provision in Europe and searched for spatial gradients in their provision to elucidate their suitability for large-scale El and ES mapping in Europe. Overall, 28 sites belonging to the Long-Term Ecological Research network in Europe participated in this study, covering a longitudinal gradient from Spain to Bulgaria and a latitudinal gradient from Italy to Sweden. As a primary outcome, an improved and consolidated El and ES matrix was achieved with 17.5% of all matrix fields updated. For the first time, this new matrix also contains measures of uncertainty for each entry. El and ES provision assessments were more variable for natural and semi-natural than for more anthropogenically dominated land cover classes. Among the main types of El and ES, cultural service provision was rated most heterogeneously in Europe, while abiotic provisioning services were more constant. Longitudinal and latitudinal El and ES gradients were mostly detected in natural and semi-natural land cover types where temperature and precipitation are major drivers. In anthropogenically determined systems in which cultural services play a dominant role, temperature and precipitation gradients were less important. Our results suggest that this matrix approach to assess El and ES provision principally works on broad spatial scales; however, local assessments for natural systems seem to be less generalizable than assessments from anthropogenically determined systems. Provisioning and regulating services are more generalizable than cultural services. Particularly in natural and semi-natural systems, spatial gradients need to be considered. We discuss uncertainties associated with this matrix-based El and ES assessment approach and suggest that future large-scale studies should include additional land cover information and ecosystem disservices and may determine ES fluxes by differentiating between ES provision and consumption. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The International Long Term Ecological Research (ILTER) network can coordinate ecological research to provide observations of the ecosystem changes, and their socio-economic impacts on human societies at different scales. In this paper we demonstrate the importance of the ILTER network in the study and monitoring of environmental changes at a global level. We give examples of how biodiversity and ecosystem service data can be used to study impacts and adaptation options in response to climate change. Analysis of the 107 recent publications from LTER networks representing 21 countries show that LTER studies are often local and heterogeneous. There are some ecosystem types, such as agricultural or coastal ecosystems that are not covered with current ILTER network. Standardized monitoring schemes and techniques should be considered for future steering of ILTER collaboration. Integrating and synthesizing the collected data should be prioritized for future cooperation, and integrated in decision-making.

Multicompartment and multiscale long‐term observation and research are important prerequisites to tackling the scientific challenges resulting from climate and global change. Long‐term monitoring programs are cost intensive and require high analytical standards, however, and the gain of knowledge often requires longer observation times. Nevertheless, several environmental research networks have been established in recent years, focusing on the impact of climate and land use change on terrestrial ecosystems. From 2008 onward, a network of Terrestrial Environmental Observatories (TERENO) has been established in Germany as an interdisciplinary research program that aims to observe and explore the long‐term ecological, social, and economic impacts of global change at the regional level. State‐of‐the‐art methods from the field of environmental monitoring, geophysics, and remote sensing will be used to record and analyze states and fluxes for different environmental compartments from groundwater through the vadose zone, surface water, and biosphere, up to the lower atmosphere.

Intensification of agricultural land use during the last century, combined with an increasing level of agrochemicals, has resulted in a decline of both habitat diversity and quality and to simplification and homogenization of Central Europe landscapes. For three agricultural landscapes in Central Germany we investigated (1) the influence of historical and current land-use and landscape structure on plant species diversity patterns in semi-natural habitats as well as on arable fields and (2) the extent to which genetic variation within populations (H-e) of the common forest herb Geum urbanum is related to population properties and to present landscape structure. Historical and present floristic field data were analysed in relation to land-use and landscape structure characteristics of the same periods (1950s, 1970s and 2000/2002). Changes in plant species richness and composition during the past 50 years varied among landscapes according to their land-use history and environmental characteristics, but were mostly in favour of ruderal species. Plant species richness for semi-natural habitats was negatively affected by increases in mean patch size of meadows and by increases in phosphorus application. Moreover, the application of mineral fertilizer, especially phosphorus, led to many habitat specialists being replaced by generalist species. Species richness of 'arable weeds' was significantly affected at both landscape and regional level by the proportion of semi-natural habitats, habitat diversity and habitat isolation due to landscape homogenization. More intensive land use, and particularly increased nitrogen application, was associated with decreased richness of 'arable weeds'.The landscape genetic approach was extended to the same three landscapes and thus landscape-specific patterns could be disentangled from general relationships consistent across landscapes. Genetic variation of 70 populations was determined at eight microsatellite loci. Landscape structure was assessed in circular areas around populations and related to genetic variation within populations (H-e) by linear mixed-effects models. H-e was affected in an inverse manner by the size of Geum populations, by average patch size, by land-use diversity, by the area of woody habitat and by the area of roads. The study underlines the importance of habitat area and isolation as factors affecting genetic diversity, with both factors varying in a landscape-specific way.These results suggest that regional and historical processes, as well as local environmental factors, influence local plant community and population structure. Therefore, long-term studies are of high importance to understand ecological processes. We conclude that for conserving biodiversity in agricultural landscapes it is as important to protect existing, historically developed habitat diversity as the protection of habitat quality.