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..., Methods in brief, for details, see manuscript: 
Vegetation surveying and assessment of local environmental data:

Vegetation surveys were carried out in 2019 in two sampling rounds in March and June-July.
For each sampling round, two pairs of vegetated and open inter-rows were selected in the center of each vertically oriented vineyard and two pairs of embankments and terrace inter-rows were selected in the center of each terraced vineyard. The plant community was assessed in rectangles of 1 x 6 m in each selected inter-row and embankment (vineyard compartments) respectively, resulting in four quadrats per vineyard and sampling round. As fallows were difficult to assess due to dense scrub, we used one plot of 4 x 6 m for vegetation surveying. Within each plot, we identified all vascular plants and estimated their respective ground cover according to Londo (Londo 1976).
We additionally estimated the percentage cover of total vegetation, bare ground, litter, shrubs, and trees. Nomenclatur..., , # Data from: Promoting plant diversity and habitat heterogeneity through vineyard terracing

Authors: Wersebeckmann, V.; Burstedde, K.; Leyer, I.

### General information

#### Date of data collection

vegetation surveying and assessment of local environmental data: March and June-July 2019

#### Location

winegrowing area of the Upper middle Rhine Valley, Germany

#### Keywords

Agroecology, Community composition, Extensive management, Disturbance, Management intensity, Strategy type, Viticulture

#### Funding

German Federal Environmental Foundation (DBU) [34025/01] as part of the BioQuiS project (www.bioquis.de)

### Methods

in brief, for details see manuscript:

## Vegetation surveying and assessment of local environmental data:

\> Vegetation surveys were carried out in 2019 in two sampling rounds in March and June\-July\.
\> For each sampling round\, two pairs of vegetated and open inter\-rows were selected in the center of each vertically oriented vineyard and two
\> pa...