Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 01 frontiersin.org Why grazing and soil matter for dry grassland diversity: New insights from multigroup structural equation modeling of micro-patterns

Grazing is recognized as a major process driving the composition of plant
communities in grasslands, mostly due to the heterogeneous removal of
plant species and soil compaction that results in a mosaic of small patches
called micro-patterns. To date, no study has investigated the differences in
composition and functioning among these micro-patterns in grasslands in
relation to grazing and soil environmental variables at the micro-local scale.
In this study, we ask (1) To what extent are micro-patterns different from each
other in terms of species composition, species richness, vegetation volume,
evenness, and functioning? and (2) based on multigroup structural equation
modeling, are those differences directly or indirectly driven by grazing and soil
characteristics? We focused on three micro-patterns of the Mediterranean dry
grassland of the Crau area, a protected area traditionally grazed in the South-
East of France. From 70 plant community relevés carried out in three micro-
patterns located in four sites with different soil and grazing characteristics,
we performed univariate, multivariate analyses and applied structural equation
modeling for the first time to this type of data. Our results show evidence
of clear differences among micro-pattern patches in terms of species
composition, vegetation volume, species richness, evenness, and functioning
at the micro-local scale. These differences are maintained not only by direct
and indirect effects of grazing but also by several soil variables such as fine
granulometry. Biological crusts appeared mostly driven by these soil variables,
whereas reference and edge communities are mostly the result of different
levels of grazing pressure revealing three distinct functioning specific to each
micro-pattern, all of them coexisting at the micro-local scale in the studied
Mediterranean dry grassland. This first overview of the multiple effects of
grazing and soil characteristics on communities in micro-patterns is discussed
within the scope of the conservation of dry grasslands plant diversity.