Relationship between community functional traits, productivity and soil properties in Irish semi-natural grassland habitats
| dc.contributor.advisor | Wingler, Astrid | |
| dc.contributor.advisor | Cawkwell, Fiona | |
| dc.contributor.advisorexternal | Bacon, Karen | en |
| dc.contributor.author | Halpin, Eoin | en |
| dc.contributor.funder | Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Ireland | en |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2026-02-12T09:08:14Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2026-02-12T09:08:14Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2025 | en |
| dc.date.submitted | 2025 | |
| dc.description.abstract | Semi-natural grasslands provide many ecosystem services, with biomass production for livestock being of major importance. Both plant species diversity and functional diversity can affect grassland productivity and ecosystem services. However, previous research has revealed positive, negative or unimodal diversity-productivity relationships in grasslands. Previously observed impacts of functional and species diversity on soil carbon have been predominantly positive. This research involved surveys for three Irish semi-natural grassland habitats: dry calcareous and neutral grassland (GS1), dry-humid acid grassland (GS3) and wet grassland (GS4). The three habitats were found to differ significantly in their soil parameters (nitrogen and pH), their vegetation functional strategy according to the competitor, stress tolerator, ruderal (CSR) system and in their functional diversity (functional richness). Based on differences found between the habitats, the hypothesis was tested that diversity-ecosystem process relationships are habitat dependent. Relationships between functional diversity and species diversity were found to differ depending on habitat type. Relationships between productivity (from remote sensing surveying of Normalised Difference Vegetation Index) and diversity were negative, with the strongest relationship found in the GS3 grasslands. Community-weighted means of leaf dry matter content (CWM-LDMC) and community S strategy were also negatively correlated with productivity in GS3 grasslands, but no relationship between CWM-Leaf Area (CWM-LA) or C strategy was found in any of the grasslands. Soil carbon showed no significant correlation with functional diversity and species diversity except in the GS4 habitat. In these GS4 communities soil carbon correlated positively with CWM-LA but negatively with metrics of species and functional diversity. Differences in diversity-productivity relationships in different habitats suggest that management or soil type influence the nature of these relationships. Such differences between sites and habitats likely overshadowed any influence diversity may have had on productivity or carbon sequestration by their stronger impact on ecosystem functioning. The results indicate that the inherent conditions of grassland ecosystems will strongly influence diversity-productivity relationships, suggesting significant implications for grassland management and monitoring. | en |
| dc.description.status | Not peer reviewed | en |
| dc.description.version | Accepted Version | en |
| dc.format.mimetype | application/pdf | en |
| dc.identifier.citation | Halpin, E. 2025. Relationship between community functional traits, productivity and soil properties in Irish semi-natural grassland habitats. MRes Thesis, University College Cork. | |
| dc.identifier.endpage | 182 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/10468/18520 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | en |
| dc.publisher | University College Cork | en |
| dc.relation.project | Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (Competitive Research Funding Programme ,Project Reference 2021R529) | en |
| dc.rights | © 2025, Eoin Halpin. | en |
| dc.rights.uri | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ | |
| dc.subject | Semi-natural grasslands | en |
| dc.subject | Biomass production for livestock | en |
| dc.subject | Irish semi-natural grassland habitats | en |
| dc.subject | Managed ecosystems | en |
| dc.subject | Grazing intensity | en |
| dc.title | Relationship between community functional traits, productivity and soil properties in Irish semi-natural grassland habitats | en |
| dc.type | Masters thesis (Research) | en |
| dc.type.qualificationlevel | Masters | en |
| dc.type.qualificationname | MRes - Master of Research | en |
