The Effect of Climate on Strongly Disturbed Vegetation of Bait Sites in a Central European Lower Montane Zone, Hungary

Katalin Rusvai, Judit Házi () and Szilárd Czóbel
Additional contact information
Katalin Rusvai: Department of Nature Conservation and Landscape Management, Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Páter Károly utca 1., H-2100 Gödöllő, Hungary
Judit Házi: Department of Botany, University of Veterinary Medicine Budapest, Rottenbiller utca 50., H-1077 Budapest, Hungary
Szilárd Czóbel: Institute of Plant Sciences and Environmental Protection, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Szeged, Andrássy út 15., H-6800 Hódmezővásárhely, Hungary

Land, 2024, vol. 13, issue 7, 1-14

Abstract: Human landscape-transforming activities contribute to the global change in vegetation in different forms. Hunting is one of the most ancient human landscape-shaping activities. Feeders for hunting are particularly disruptive to vegetation. In the present study, we conducted a vegetation survey in these highly disturbed places. We investigated the vegetation dynamics over several years in the turkey oak–sessile oak zone, in two areas with different moisture and shade conditions (forest and clearing). Important background factors are the changes in precipitation and temperature. Our results confirm that weed infestation is detectable at bait sites over a long period. The seasonal changes in field weed vegetation, as well as the increase in the number and coverage of weed species at the end of summer, resulting from lifestyle characteristics, were generally detectable in all years and locations, especially in the case of open and more strongly degraded clearings. Meteorological factors played a role in the degree of weed infestation in each year. Degradation was more significant in drought years, while regeneration was also observed in wetter periods. At baits located in the clearing, we showed a positive correlation between the amount of summer precipitation and the total coverage of weed species, as well as between the average spring temperature and the coverage of certain weed species. With the drying of the climate, the disturbed areas are constantly losing their natural value, but wetter weather is not an automatic solution either. Considering that there are approx. 30,000 bait sites in the country, and they are used regularly and very intensively, they can serve as major infection hotspots for alien species in a network.

Keywords: bait site; wild boar hunting; degradation; climate change; plant invasion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/13/7/1108/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/13/7/1108/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlands:v:13:y:2024:i:7:p:1108-:d:1440153

Access Statistics for this article

Land is currently edited by Ms. Carol Ma

More articles in Land from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().