Assessing the impact of mowing regimes on University of Leicester greenspaces and their role in ecosystem services (ES) provision

Mowing is a set pattern or frequency implemented in managing vegetation growth, prevent
spread of invasive insects, and restore habitats to enhance pre-existing biodiversity. Periodic
mowing holds an integral role in a myriad of ecological interactions such as nutrient cycling,
carbon sequestration, an increase in pollinator visit frequencies, and promoting ecological
succession. However, recent studies indicate varying implications of mowing regimes
towards ecosystem services(ES). Any direct or indirect benefits that humans derive from
nature for their well-being are ecosystem services(ES). To investigate the diverse implications
of mowing on tangible and intangible ES, 8 green spaces across the University of Leicester
campus were identified as wild, amenity and recreational grasslands based on the mowing
regimes. Each site was surveyed using the standard Flower Insect Timed(FIT) count method
to gain pollinator and plant insights and the‘ loss via ignition’ methodology for soil. The results
show a particular mowing regime applied on wildgrasslands support high pollinator
abundance, plant species richness and diversity, followed by amenity with moderate and
recreational the least. Furthermore, the soil survey findings show mowing to not exhibit any
statistically significant differences in organic matter content present in the soil. Although
amenity and recreational grasslands exhibited higher organic matter content, followed by
wildgrassland with the least, further in-depth soil-biochemistry research is required. The
multivariate analyses show the presence of high variation in pollinator community
composition across wildgrasslands, followed by moderate variation in amenity and least in
recreational grassland. In addition, the plant community composition spanned across sites
indicate wildgrasslands to exhibit significantly the highest variation in plants compared to
amenity and recreational grasslands, which indicated moderate to least signifying the role of
intricate ecological interactions and the impact of mowing on ecosystem services.