Promoting plant diversity and habitat heterogeneity through vineyard terracing

Questions: Viticulture on steep slopes has shaped landscape and biodiversity in many regions, but insufficient profitability has led to management cessation and shrub encroachment. A solution to maintain cultivation economically viable could be vineyard terracing. We aimed to identify the potential of terracing to enhance plant diversity and habitat heterogeneity in vineyards, analyse effects of management intensity on vineyard vegetation, and assess how plant communities change after vineyard abandonment.
Location: Wine-growing region of the Upper Middle Rhine Valley in Hesse (50.042342°N, 7.814533°E) and Rhineland-Palatinate (50.119139°N, 7.719275°E), Germany.           
Methods: We recorded vascular plant species and local vineyard parameters in vertically oriented vineyards with vegetated and tilled open inter-rows, in terraced vineyards with tilled terrace inter-rows and extensively managed embankments and in vineyard fallows in a total of 45 study sites. We used plant species ric...

研究问题：陡坡葡萄种植已为诸多区域塑造了独特景观与生物多样性，但盈利不足导致经营中止与灌木入侵。维持葡萄种植经济可行性的可行方案之一为葡萄园梯田改造。本研究旨在探明梯田改造对提升葡萄园植物多样性与生境异质性的潜力，分析经营强度对葡萄园植被的影响，并评估葡萄园弃耕后植物群落的变化规律。
研究区域：德国黑森州（50.042342°N, 7.814533°E）与莱茵兰-普法尔茨州境内的中上游莱茵河谷葡萄酒产区。
研究方法：我们在总计45个研究样地中开展调查，涵盖带有植被覆盖与耕作裸露行间带的顺坡葡萄园、带有耕作梯田行间带与粗放管理堤岸的梯田式葡萄园以及葡萄园休耕地，记录了维管植物物种与当地葡萄园相关参数。本研究采用了植物物种ric...