Multiple targeted grassland restoration interventions enhance ecosystem service multifunctionality

Abstract

The need to combat widespread degradation of grassland ecosystem services makes grassland restoration a global sustainability priority. However, simultaneously enhancing multiple ecosystem services (i.e. ecosystem service multifunctionality) is a major challenge for grassland restoration due to trade-offs among services. We use a long-term multifactor grassland restoration experiment established in 1989 on agriculturally improved, species-poor grassland in northern England, to assess how increasing the number of restoration treatments, including addition of manure, inorganic fertiliser, a seed mixture, and promotion of a nitrogen-fixing legume (Trifolium pratense), affects ecosystem service multifunctionality, based on 26 ecosystem service indicators measured between 2011 and 2014. We find that single interventions usually lead to trade-offs among services and thus have few positive effects on ecosystem service multifunctionality. However, ecosystem service multifunctionality increases with the number of restoration interventions, as trade-offs are reduced. Our findings highlight the significant potential for combined use of multiple targeted interventions to aid the restoration of ecosystem service multifunctionality in degraded grasslands, and potentially, other ecosystems.