October 2016 Bulletin 32 of the Eurasian Dry Grassland Group Content Eurasian Dry Grassland 1‐2 Group Dear members of the Eurasian Dry Grassland Group, We are pleased to present the new issue of the EDGG Bulletin, which comprises a Post‐conference report for 3‐7 report of the 13th Eurasian Grassland Conference. The Executive Committee is deeply the 13th Eurasian Grass‐ grateful to the local organizers for the well‐organized event and a lot of pleasant mo‐ land Conference 2016 in ments. The issue also includes reports from IAVS grantees, as well as the first call for Sighisoara, Romania the 14th Eurasian Grassland Conference, to be held in Riga (Latvia) and Klaipeda (Lithuania). This volume also includes a paper on the standardised EDGG sampling Report From IAVS 8‐9 methodology, with its rationale and detailed illustrated description. The paper also Grantees provides the current versions of the guidelines, field forms and data entry spread‐ sheets as open‐access Online Resources. Finally, the Forum section is devoted to the presentation of the paper of Burrascano et al. 2016, entitled Current European poli‐ th First call of the 14 10‐11 cies are unlikely to jointly foster carbon sequestration and protect biodiversity, which Eurasian Grassland highlights the important conflicts between grassland biodiversity conservation and Conference European policies to mitigate climate change by increasing carbon sequestration, which often lead to afforestation and consequently loss of grassland biodiversity. EDGG Special Features 12 We would like to take the opportunity again to emphasize that the Bulletin welcomes submissions of scientific articles (in the form of Research papers, Forum papers, Re‐ views or Reports). While we do not provide peer‐review, we offer linguistic editing Dengler J., Boch S., Filibeck 13‐30 after acceptance, and your paper will achieve high visibility if published in the Bulletin G., Chiarucci A., Dembicz because it is open access and sent to more than 1000 grassland specialists through‐ I., Guarino R., Henneberg out the world. You can find the author guidelines on the EDGG homepage. Since July B., Janišová M., Marcenò 2016, the Bulletin also has a profile in ResearchGate to which you can contribute by C., Naqinezhad A., Pol‐ uploading your Bulletin articles (https://www.researchgate.net/journal/1868‐ chaninova N. Y., Vassilev 2456_Bulletin_of_the_Eurasian_Dry_Grassland_Group). K. & Biurrun I. Assessing We would also like to remind you that our Bulletin is an excellent way to inform the plant diversity and compo‐ group members about your recent grassland‐related publications and forthcoming sition in grasslands across events relevant for EDGG members. We hope that reading the Bulletin will inspire you spatial scales: the stan‐ to new ideas and discoveries that, in turn, will find their place on the pages of future dardised EDGG sampling volumes. methodology Anna Kuzemko, Idoia Biurrun & the Editorial Board Forum 31 Book Review 32‐35 At the top: Forthcoming events 36 Trifolium arvense at the steppe slope in National Nature Park “Karmeliukove Podillya” (Central Ukraine) (Photo: Anna Kuzemko) 2 Bulletin of the Eurasian Dry Grassland Group 32 October 2016 Eurasian Dry Grassland Group (EDGG) The Eurasian Dry Grassland Group (EDGG) is a To become a member of the Eurasian Dry Grass‐ network of researchers and conservationists land Group or its subordinate units, please, send interested in Palaearctic natural and semi‐ an e‐mail to Idoia Biurrun, including your name The basic aims of the EDGG natural grasslands. It is an official subgroup of and complete address, and specify any of the are: IAVS (http://www.iavs.org) but one can join our groups you wish to join. More detailed informa‐ group without being IAVS member. We live tion can be found at: to compile and to from the activities of our members. Everybody http://www.edgg.org/about_us.htm distribute information on can join EDGG without any fee or other obliga‐ research and conservation tion. As of 31 October 2016 the EDGG had 1170 in natural and semi‐natural members from 66 countries all over the world. The EDGG covers all aspects related to dry grasslands beyond national While we are well‐represented in most Euro‐ grasslands, in particular: plants ‐ animals ‐ fungi borders; pean countries, few European countries are still ‐ microbia ‐ soils ‐ taxonomy ‐ phylogeography ‐ not or hardly covered by members. Moreover, ecophysiology ‐ population biology ‐ species' to stimulate active the extra‐European part of the Palaearctic realm interactions ‐ vegetation ecology ‐ syntaxonomy cooperation among (which according to our Bylaws is the geo‐ ‐ landscape ecology ‐ biodiversity ‐ land use grassland scientists graphic scope of EDGG!) is still grossly underrep‐ history ‐ agriculture ‐ nature conservation ‐ res‐ (exchanging data, common resented. toration ‐ environmental legislation ‐ environ‐ data standards, joint mental education. projects). To achieve its aims, EDGG provides seven instruments for the information exchange EDGG Subgroups among grassland researchers and conservationists: juergen.dengler@uni‐bayreuth.de): 94 mem‐ The members are automatically included in the the Bulletin of the EDGG bers regional subgroup of the region in which they (published quarterly); reside. If you additionally wish to join the Topi‐ South‐East European Dry Grasslands (SEEDGG) the EDGG homepage cal Subgroup Grassland Conservation and Resto‐ (contact: Iva Apostolova ‐ [email protected]): 287 members (www.edgg.org); ration just send an e‐mail to the Membership Administrator ([email protected] or Mediterranean Dry Grasslands (Med‐DG) e‐mails via our mailing list [email protected]). (contact: Michael Vrahnakis ‐ mvrah‐ on urgent issues; [email protected]): 315 members Arbeitsgruppe Trockenrasen (Germany) the Eurasian Grassland (contact: Thomas Becker ‐ beckerth@uni‐ Topical Subgroup Grassland Conservation and Conference ‐ organized trier.de), Ute Jandt ‐ [email protected]‐ Restoration (contact: Péter Török ‐ annually at different halle.de: 246 members [email protected]): 70 members locations throughout the Working Group on Dry Grasslands in the Nordic Palaearctic Realm; and Baltic Region (contact: Jürgen Dengler ‐ EDGG research expeditions and field workshops to sample EDGG Executive Committee and responsibilities baseline data of underrepresented regions of its members of Palaearctic Realm; Didem Ambarlı: Editor‐in‐Chief of homepage, Anna Kuzemko: Editor‐in‐Chief of Bulletin, Book Deputy Conferences Coordinator, Review Editor, Facebook Group Administrator, EDGG vegetation [email protected] [email protected] databases; Idoia Biurrun: Membership Administrator, Dep‐ Péter Török: IAVS Representative, Contact Offi‐ Special Features on uty Editor‐in‐Chief of Bulletin, Deputy Field cer to other organisations, Deputy Coordinator grassland‐related topics in Workshop Coordinator, Deputy IAVS Represen‐ of Species Features, Deputy Secretary‐General, various peer‐reviewed tative, Deputy Editor‐in‐Chief of homepage, Deputy Book Review Editor, [email protected] [email protected] journals. Stephen Venn: Secretary‐General, Deputy Jürgen Dengler: Coordinator for Special Fea‐ Membership Administrator, Deputy Policy Offi‐ tures; Field Workshop Coordinator, juer‐ cer, Deputy Facebook Group Administrator, gen.dengler@uni‐bayreuth.de [email protected] Monika Janišová: Deputy Editor‐in‐Chief of the Michael Vrahnakis: Conferences Coordinator, EDGG Bulletin; [email protected] Policy Officer, Deputy Contact Officer to other organizations, [email protected] October 2016 Bulletin of the Eurasian Dry Grassland Group 32 3 Report Post‐conference report for the 13th Eurasian Grassland Conference 2016 in Sighisoara, Romania Between the 20th and 24th of September 2016, 85 partici‐ Reflecting Ecology in Policy, led by Jabier Ruiz, Cait‐ pants from 25 countries met in Sighisoara in Southern Tran‐ riona Maher (European Forum on Nature Conserva‐ sylvania for the 13th annual conference of the Eurasian Dry tion and Pastoralism) & Clunie Keenleyside (Institute Grassland Group (see Fig 1. for a breakdown of the coun‐ for European Environmental Policy) The main conference took place in the 14 14 newly renovated hall of the Municipality of Sighisoara, which was kindly lent to us free 9 of charge. The Mayor Ovidiu Mălăncrăvean welcomed all the participants at the open‐ 66 55 ing of the conference. The excellent food 3 and a lot of additional assistance was pro‐ 22222 111111111111 vided by Mihai Serengeu of the central Park Hotel. Our special thanks to these two. Italy Latvia Serbia Russia Turkey Poland Ireland Austria Finland Estonia Greece Norway Ukraine Bulgaria Slovakia Belgium Hungary Portugal Republic Kingdom Romania Lithuania Germany The first keynote was given by Professor Macedonia Switzerland Joern Fischer of Leuphana University of Czech United Lüneburg in Germany, summarising the results of his 5‐year transdisciplinary pro‐ ject in Southern Transylvania, the region Figure 1. Breakdown of the 25 countries of the 85 participants where the EGC took place. tries). In contrast to the previous 12 “EDGM, European Dry His research team integrated social and ecological research Grassland Meetings”, this year it was decided to change the methods to address the issue of sustainable land use in the name to “Eurasian Grassland Conference” to reflect the region. Based on their findings they produced future scenar‐ changing scope of these events. Nevertheless, the confer‐ ios for the social and ecological