Alpine and pre-Alpine grasslands provide numerous ecosystem services including provisioning services (e.g. fodder production), regulating services (e.g. soil erosion reduction), and cultural services (e.g. recreation). While intensively managed grasslands specifically target the production of fodder, more extensively used grasslands are known for being hotspots of biodiversity. However, there is a need to better understand the...

Agri-environmental schemes (AES) are important policy instruments within the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the European Union for environmental protection. Due to the voluntary nature of AES, their attractiveness to farmers and stakeholders involved in nature management and protection (nature managers) is essential for high participation levels. This study aims to assess farmers’ and nature managers’ ideas to improve agr...

There is a pressing need for transformative change, with a vision of long-term human well-being within planetary boundaries. The lack of progress—despite increasing awareness and action—illustrates how challenging it is to foster change in our complex global society. Education and learning are needed to enable change. Transdisciplinary learning, which meaningfully integrates diverse knowledge and perspectives, contributes to d...

Arthropods respond to vegetation in multiple ways since plants provide habitat and food resources and indicate local abiotic conditions. However, the relative importance of these factors for arthropod assemblages is less well understood. We aimed to disentangle the effects of plant species composition and environmental drivers on arthropod taxonomic composition and to assess which aspects of vegetation contribute to the relati...

Land-use intensification and climate change threaten ecosystem functions. A fundamental, yet often overlooked, function is decomposition of necromass. The direct and indirect anthropogenic effects on decomposition, however, are poorly understood. We measured decomposition of two contrasting types of necromass, rat carrion and bison dung, on 179 study sites in Central Europe across an elevational climate gradient of 168–1122 m...