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Additional disturbances as a beneficial tool for restoration of post-mining sites: a multi-taxa approach

  • How can we restore the biodiversity and ecosystem services in mining and industrial sites?
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Abstract

Open interior sands represent a highly threatened habitat in Europe. In recent times, their associated organisms have often found secondary refuges outside their natural habitats, mainly in sand pits. We investigated the effects of different restoration approaches, i.e. spontaneous succession without additional disturbances, spontaneous succession with additional disturbances caused by recreational activities, and forestry reclamation, on the diversity and conservation values of spiders, beetles, flies, bees and wasps, orthopterans and vascular plants in a large sand pit in the Czech Republic, Central Europe. Out of 406 species recorded in total, 112 were classified as open sand specialists and 71 as threatened. The sites restored through spontaneous succession with additional disturbances hosted the largest proportion of open sand specialists and threatened species. The forestry reclamations, in contrast, hosted few such species. The sites with spontaneous succession without disturbances represent a transition between these two approaches. While restoration through spontaneous succession favours biodiversity in contrast to forestry reclamation, additional disturbances are necessary to maintain early successional habitats essential for threatened species and open sand specialists. Therefore, recreational activities seem to be an economically efficient restoration tool that will also benefit biodiversity in sand pits.

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Acknowledgment

The authors thank Keith Edwards for proofreading our English and Karel Prach and four anonymous reviewers for their comments. The study was supported by the following grants: the Czech Science Foundation (P505/11/0256, P504/12/2525), RVO 67985939, HeidelbergCement Group (Quarry Life Award 2012), the University of South Bohemia (04-168/2013/P) and University of Hradec Králové (SV 2117/2014). None of the funders had any influence on the study design, results and their interpretation.

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Correspondence to Klára Řehounková.

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Responsible editor: Thomas Hein

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Online Resource lists of all recorded species with their memberships in individual categories and references to nomenclature, conservation status, open sand specialisation and habitat use. (XLS 138 kb)

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Řehounková, K., Čížek, L., Řehounek, J. et al. Additional disturbances as a beneficial tool for restoration of post-mining sites: a multi-taxa approach. Environ Sci Pollut Res 23, 13745–13753 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-016-6585-5

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