ABSTRACT
Grasslands in Europe are of overriding importance for the biodiversity of agricultural landscapes. In Central Europe, grasslands harbour more than a thousand higher plant species which is about one-third of the total number of higher plant species. Compared to the arable weed flora, the grassland flora is three times higher (Ellenberg and Leuschner 2010). The biodiversity of grasslands has been developed over millennia. The origin of many of the grassland plant species in temperate Europe goes back to times before humans began any farming activity (Pärtel et al. 2005). Grazing of wild herbivores is seen as a major process that created spots or larger areas of open land in a natural landscape dominated by woodland (Vera 2000). Yet, the entire biodiversity of temperate grasslands in Europe, which obviously had a peak just before the intensification and industrialization of grassland agriculture in the early decades of the twentieth century, is closely related to farming, that is, mowing and grazing livestock (Dengler et al. 2014; Poschlod 2017).
