| Agricultural landscapes are highly dynamic. In Sweden, land-use has changed dramatically and generally led to a loss of biodiversity in agroecosystems over historic time scales. This is linked to decreasing area of ancient semi-natural grassland and to a general intensification of cropping systems. Grasslands with long continuity are biodiversity hotspots aboveground, and political actions are in place to secure conservational values of plant communities. However, whether belowground biodiversity shows the same patterns and has the same conservational needs as plants is unknown. Further, how above-belowground links in biodiversity and related carbon and nutrient dynamics change over management and grassland age gradients is unknown, which hampers our ability to set management targets that support the multitude of services mediated by belowground communities. The aim of this project is to evaluate at which timescales high biodiversity values and biogeochemical characteristics can re-establish, above- and belowground, when arable land is converted to permanent grassland. The proposed project is an addition (a one-year postdoc project) to a currently running FORMAS project and thus will benefit from an already established historic chronosequence of former crop fields converted to permanent grassland. The proposed work will further benefit from an established research team and stakeholder network, which will ensure high quality results and integration into relevant management contexts. The project will have particular focus on how the re-establishment of high conservational values in the vegetation is interacting with establishment of arbuscular mycorrhizal, fungal and bacterial biodiversity and related biogeochemical soil functions. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi are obligate and omnipresent symbionts of plants that promote nutrient uptake, resistance against pathogens and carbon flow to the soil. Thus, these fungi have great potential to improve sustainability of agricultural systems, and their biodiversity status and potential conservation needs should be assessed. This project aim to inform management practices that benefit belowground biodiversity and linked functions in re-established permanent grassland, and potentially in productive arable land. |