Franziska Julia Richter

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Richter

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Franziska Julia

ORCID

0000-0001-7865-9903

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Publications 1 - 10 of 14

Impact of Grassland Management on Ecosystem Services and Soil Microbial Diversity
Richter, Franziska Julia (2023)
Organic farming is more related to topography than to soil characteristics in extensively and intensively managed grasslands in Switzerland
Klaus, Valentin; Richter, Franziska Julia; Lüscher, Andreas; et al. (2024)
Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment
Organic farming and other agri-environmental schemes (AES) are important policy tools to support environmental-friendly agriculture. Often, AES require a direct reduction of actual management intensity to sustain biodiversity and non-marketable ecosystem services. In addition to lower management intensity, differences in topography and soils between AES and non-AES land can occur, driven by the targeted placement of AES in the landscape. Many of the latter effects of an AES are, however, widely unknown and frequently ignored, limiting a comprehensive understanding of how organic farming and other AES deliver environmental outcomes. We analysed pedological, topographical and other spatial characteristics of parcels under two grassland AES, i.e., organic farming (vs. conventional) and extensive management (vs. intensive). Thus, this study assessed whether organic farming is related to differences in topography and soil conditions in both extensively and intensively managed grasslands in the study region in the north of Switzerland. Therefore, we combined a regional-scale spatial analysis of permanent grassland parcels and a soil survey. Both AES were tested not only in interaction with each other but also within the two main harvest types, i.e., meadows (mainly mown) and pastures (mainly grazed), resulting in eight distinct grassland types that were studied. Results show both AES to be linked to differences in soil nutrients as well as topographical and other spatial characteristics. We found interactions of the two AES with the harvest type, i.e., meadow versus pasture. This was particularly pronounced for extensively managed conventional meadows, which were frequent at low elevation and on land potentially suitable for arable farming. Extensively managed pastures and all organic grasslands exhibited reduced production conditions (i.e., higher elevation, steeper slope, lower soil phosphorus concentrations). Yet, differences between organic and conventional grasslands were by tendency more pronounced in intensively than extensively managed grasslands. Our results show that farmers preferentially adopted both AES on land not ideal for intensive production, with the exception of many extensively managed meadows in low elevations. Our study therefore demonstrated that an assessment of the ecological outcomes of an AES must not only account for direct effects via management restrictions but also for indirect effects via spatial targeting by farmers. More research is still needed to assess and compare direct and indirect effects of AES to support evidence-based policymaking and improve spatial targeting of different land-use types.
Effects of organic farming on ecosystem services and multifunctionality in Switzerland: the ServiceGrass project
Klaus, Valentin; Richter, Franziska Julia; Buchmann, Nina; et al. (2020)
Grassland Science in Europe ~ Proceedings of the 28th General Meeting of the European Grassland Federation
Sustainable agriculture delivers not only market goods but also many public ecosystem services and nonmarket goods. Agricultural intensification undermines the delivery of many public ecosystem services at local level. Organic farming might decrease the environmental impact of intensive food and feed production on grasslands and could therefore be able to sustain both private and public ecosystem services. A systematic literature search of scientific publications revealed the absence of literature on the impact of organic farming on ecosystem services in grasslands. Thus, the project ServiceGrass was initiated to explore effects of organic grassland farming on several ecosystem services and their simultaneous provisioning, i.e. multifunctionality, in Switzerland. The principal aim of the project is to compare the ability of organic and conventional grasslands to deliver ecosystem services at plot and farm levels, including management intensification as a major driver. We aim at up-scaling results from grassland plots to farm- and sector-level in order to draw conclusions on the realized ecosystem services portfolio of both farming systems. Findings of this project will underline strengths and weaknesses of organic and conventional farming systems in delivering multiple ecosystem services for sustainable future grassland management.
A guide to assess and value ecosystem services of grasslands
Richter, Franziska Julia; Jan, Pierrick; Benni, Nadja El; et al. (2021)
Ecosystem Services
Comprehensive mapping of Ecosystem Services (ES) is necessary to understand the impact of global change on crucial ES and to find strategies to sustain human wellbeing. Economic valuation of ES further translates their biophysical values into monetary values, which are then comparable across different ES and easily understandable to decision makers. However, a comprehensive synthesis of methods to measure ES indicators in grasslands, a central element of many landscapes around the globe, is still lacking, hampering the implementation of grassland ES-multifunctionality surveys. To identify suitable and recommendable methods, we reviewed the literature and evaluated labor intensiveness, equipment costs and predictive power of all methods. To facilitate the translation of biophysical ES into monetary terms, we further provide an overview of available methods for the economic valuation of ES. This review resulted in a toolbox comprising 85 plot-scale methods for assessing 29 different ES indicators for 21 provisioning, regulating, supporting or cultural ES. The available methods to measure ES indicators vary widely in labor intensiveness, costs, and predictive power. Based on this synthesis, we recommend 1) to choose direct over indirect methods and ES indicators, 2) to use the most accurate methods to estimate ES indicators, 3) to take into account that one ES indicator can have implications for more than one final ES, and 4) to utilize the wealth of available methods and indicators to assess as many ES for ES-multifunctionality studies as possible, especially including cultural ES. Moreover, the overview of approaches that can be used for the economic valuation of different grassland ES shall facilitate economic ES-multifunctionality assessments. Thus, this methodological guidance will considerably support researchers and stakeholders in setting up ES comprehensive assessments and monitoring schemes in grasslands and shall ultimately help overcome incomplete or superficial surveys based on single or few ES only.
Powerful flowers: Public perception of grassland aesthetics is strongly related to management and biodiversity
Klaus, Valentin; Richter, Franziska Julia; Fox, Nathan; et al. (2026)
Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment
Temperate grasslands provide various cultural ecosystem services that are appreciated in diverse ways. Capturing these diverse appreciations requires different methodological approaches, such as questionnaire surveys and social media analyses. In this study, we combined the potential of both approaches to capture two aspects of what people appreciate in Swiss agricultural grasslands, i.e., the aesthetic quality of differently managed plant communities and the objects frequently found in grassland-based social media images. The two complementary approaches showed that people preferred colourful flower- and species-rich grasslands over grass-dominated and fertilised swards. This appreciation can be predicted from automatic image analysis. Social media analysis highlighted that people mainly photographed flowers, followed by livestock and/or wildlife, but this depended also on the social media platform accessed. In addition, we found differences between (i) conservationists and agricultural professionals in the aesthetic appreciation of the plant communities, as well as between (ii) common visitors and naturalists in their social media content. In conclusion, people's appreciation was clearly related to the intensity of grassland management and the level of biodiversity, with a preference for extensively managed grasslands with diverse flowers and wildlife. Our results suggest that extensive management and ecological restoration can be used to increase cultural grassland ecosystem services by enhancing the richness of forbs, flowers and other attractive wildlife. Thus, targeted management can maintain and enhance the attractiveness of grassland landscapes and subsequently support health benefits, opportunities for recreation, agrotourism as well as culture and heritage.
How professional stakeholders perceive the current and future relevance of grassland ecosystem services in Switzerland
Klaus, Valentin; Richter, Franziska Julia; Reichmuth, Cécile; et al. (2022)
Grassland Science in Europe ~ Grassland at the Heart of Circular and Sustainable Food Systems
We conducted a (non-representative) online survey in Switzerland to reveal professional stakeholders’ perceptions and attitudes towards ecosystem services (ES) provided by permanent grassland. According to the 398 respondents, erosion control, soil fertility, feed production, habitat provision (for biodiversity), and groundwater protection currently represent the most relevant grassland ES. Regarding the future, stakeholders assumed particularly climate regulation (carbon storage), soil fertility, and groundwater protection to increase in relevance. The majority (84%) of respondents stated that grassland ES are insufficiently recognized by society. Almost three quarters of the stakeholders associated grassland management intensification with a loss of ES multifunctionality, and 60% expected higher ES multifunctionality of organic compared to conventional grassland. Our survey revealed that strategies to ensure and to value grassland ES by society and by future agricultural policies might be welcome and supported by stakeholders in Switzerland.
Indicators for assessing the multifunctionality of agriculturally used grasslands
Klaus, Valentin; Richter, Franziska Julia; Buchmann, Nina; et al. (2024)
Ecological Indicators
Grasslands are highly multifunctional ecosystems, providing forage to livestock and many regulating and cultural ecosystem services (ES). Agri-environmental schemes (AES) often aim at sustaining and increasing especially non-production ES, i.e., those services not primarily relevant for production but for society as a whole. An open question restricting the implementation of such AES for grassland ES multifunctionality is how to effectively measure and monitor multifunctionality without separately accounting for all single ES. To address this question, we measured 30 plot-level ES indicators, including plant species richness, in 88 permanent grasslands along a fertilization intensity gradient in Switzerland. We explored the correlative structure among all ES indicators and the potential of each indicator to approximate non-production ES multifunctionality. We finally discuss potentially suitable ES-multifunctionality indicators for future result-based AES. The analyses revealed two distinct bundles within the comprehensive list of ES indicators considered in the study. The first bundle consisted of ten ES indicators, including aesthetic appreciation, fungal richness, plant richness, and several ES indicators for reduced adverse environmental impacts (e.g., lower nutrient leaching risk). This bundle was strongly negatively related to the second bundle, composed of twelve ES indicators that were mostly directly related to intensive forage production (e.g., nutrient supply, yield quantity and yield quality). Plant species richness (positive) and fertilization intensity (negative) were the two measures most closely related to non-production multifunctionality, highlighting their potential to be put to use as multifunctionality indicators. We argue that due to the policy relevance of biodiversity conservation, plant species richness could find application as indicator for AES designed to increase and monitor grassland non-production multifunctionality. While plant species richness is rather stable over time, considering changes (reductions) in fertilization intensity could be an option for a more responsive indicator to be used to facilitate ES-positive grassland management on the short term. Integrating our findings in future agricultural policies could be a significant step towards rewarding land users for the non-production benefits provided by their agroecosystems.
What information is needed for upscaling grassland ecosystem services to landscape scale?
Klaus, Valentin; Lüscher, Andreas; Richter, Franziska Julia; et al. (2024)
Grassland Science in Europe ~ Why grasslands? Proceedings of the 30th General Meeting of the European Grassland Federation
Field measurements of ecosystem services (ES) are laborious and costly, so ES cannot be measured at larger spatial scales. Therefore, ES are upscaled from local measurements to a whole region, based on a restricted number of field-scale measurements combined with environmental and management predictors available for the whole region of interest. The data available to estimate ES are decisive for the quality of the resulting ES maps and the robustness of the conclusions that can be drawn. We present two ES measured in 92 grasslands and determine how well these can be upscaled using different data sources. We developed stepwise models using (i) field-scale agricultural census data, (ii) topographic characteristics, (iii) soil maps, (iv) soil measurement data, (v) detailed management data, and (vi) plant community information. Resulting models reveal forage protein content to be already well predicted by agricultural census data, but for soil carbon stocks considerably more information was needed for a reliable prediction. The explained variance (R2) of the final models ranges from 0.61 to 0.74, showing a good fit but also considerable uncertainty associated with ES maps, despite the vast data used for the final predictions.
Interacting management effects on soil microbial alpha and beta diversity in Swiss agricultural grassland
Richter, Franziska Julia; Conz, Rafaela Feola; Lüscher, Andreas; et al. (2024)
Applied Soil Ecology
Agriculturally managed grasslands are a major land-use type and crucial for global food production. Yet, degradation of grassland soils endangers both soil microbial diversity and food security, as they harbor diverse microbial life integral to ecosystem functioning and therefore ultimately also human wellbeing. Despite its functional significance, the impact of different aspects of grassland management on the soil microbiome remains insufficiently elucidated and limits our ability to maintain this invaluable and insufficiently explored biological resource. This study examined the interacting impacts of grassland management intensity, harvest type (grazing or mowing predominate), and production system (organic vs. non-organic) on soil microbial alpha and beta diversity (community structure) in the context of the local environment using a metabarcoding approach of ribosomal markers across 86 permanent grasslands in Switzerland. The local environment including soil prop erties and topographical variables explained more of the variance in fungal and prokaryotic diversity than management, which was still significantly related to most microbial diversity measures. Soil prokaryotic and fungal communities were strongly driven by management intensity, and especially in the case of fungal communities, harvest type played an important role – for alpha diversity in the form of an interaction between management intensity and harvest type, for beta diversity in the form of a main effect. Organic farming had only little direct influence on soil microbial communities. Taxa enriched in intensively managed and fertilized grasslands were typically linked to coprophilous and nitrogen-cycling guilds. Grazed grasslands were characterized by high copiotroph to oligotroph ratios. Because the most diverse soil microbiomes in permanent grasslands appear to be driven by management intensity interacting with harvest types, grasslands of differing management regimes are needed to sustain and promote soil microbial diversity at the landscape level.
Tropical forest restoration promotes soil phosphorus bioavailability in SW China: Processes and predictors
Zou, Xin; Krebs, Luana; Richter, Franziska Julia; et al. (2025)
Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment
The conversion of primary forests into monoculture plantations is a widespread phenomenon in the tropics, while the restoration of abandoned agricultural lands has gained considerable attention in recent years. Phosphorus (P) is an essential nutrient with very low availability from the soil, constraining the productivity and functioning of tropical ecosystems. However, the impacts of forest restoration on soil P cycling and the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. In Southwestern China, we investigated the plant community characteristics, soil P cycling dynamics, and soil physicochemical properties under different land uses (including monoculture plantations, farmland-regenerated secondary forests, rubber plantation-regenerated secondary forests, and primary rainforests), and identified the predictors of soil available P. We found that the conversion of primary rainforests into monoculture plantations not only substantially decreased tree diversity but also modified soil P cycling (such as total, available, microbial P and phosphatase activity). In contrast, the regeneration of secondary forests (from both farmlands and rubber plantations) significantly enhanced tree diversity and improved soil physicochemical conditions compared to monoculture plantations, thereby promoting soil P bioavailability through increased soil organic carbon, microbial P and phosphatase activity. Soil organic carbon, microbial biomass P and fine root were the main predictors of soil available P, for both annual and seasonal timeframes. Notably, the soil C:P ratio exhibited a more pronounced impact on soil available P during the dry season, while acid phosphatase exerted greater influence during the rainy season. Furthermore, the presence of fine roots and leguminous trees significantly and positively influenced soil P cycling, particularly in the surface soil layers. Thus, these results suggest that establishing legumes-rich, diverse communities and ensuring organic inputs is beneficial for sustaining soil P resources in tropical areas. This work offers important guidance for policy-makers to navigate the trade-offs between conservation and production goals in land development.

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Franziska Julia Richter

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