Rôle déterminant du pâturage pour la gestion conservatoire des systèmes prairiaux saumâtres du Marais Poitevin

Abstract

Summary: Despite the recent trends towards intensification in the « Marais Poitevin », some wet grasslands are subsisting, and among them, the communal wet grasslands are particularly representative. Convergent observations show that vegetal diversity and spatial patterns based on the maintenance of salty zones with subhalophyte species on the border of flooding depressions are closely linked to the persistence of the grazing through history. This way of management, joined with the topography resulting direct from the past salt marshes, induces hydrous and pedologic contrasts which generate this agro—ecosystem diversity. This system presents a great interest for the studies of grazing impacts. Salinity variations appear closely linked with the functional modalities of this system. © 1996, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.