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Throughout Europe seminatural communities (traditional rural biotopes) have been disappearing at an alarming rate, as a consequence, traditional types of meadows and pastures are being abandoned or transformed into fields. The rapid disappearance of extensively managed agricultural lands has made their preservation and restoration vitally important. The diverse and active soil biota has influence on decomposition of plant residues and humus formation, it participates in food webs and regulates nutrient cycling. The aim of the project is to give overview of the diversity of soil biota of Estonian seminatural communities, to find out relationships between diversity of plant and soil communities on seminatural communities, to find out the influence of the management (mowing, grazing) on decomposer communities and intensity of decomposition process, to evaluate the changes in soil communities during and after the restoration of seminatural communities. As the results of the project we obtain the new knowledge of soil biota of Estonian seminatural communities, the diversity and function of them beeing directly and indirectly related to the extremely high plant diversity. The new knowledges of the parameters and changes in decomposition process are useful in the management and maintaining of seminatural communities and in restoration of them. The area of seminatural communities are disappearing in all Europe, the results of the project have high scientifical, historical and cultural values because of extremely high biological diversity and diversity of landscapes as well as historical and emotional values of seminatural communities. |