Natural open inland sandy grasslands are a highly threatened habitat in Europe. The originally nutrient‐poor habitats have been affected by increased aerial N‐deposition and the spread of competitively strong plants. We investigated the restoration of degraded psammophilous vegetation in the southeastern part of the Czech Republic, central Europe, where the competitively strong grass Calamagrostis epigejos had formed a compact cover over many hectares formerly dominated by valuable psammophilous grasslands. To expose nutrient‐poor sand, the upper nutrient‐rich layer was scraped off down to a depth of 10–30 cm. Vegetation was recorded by phytosociological relevés annually in a total of 15 permanent plots (5 × 5 m) established between 2012 and 2014 (five plots in each consecutive year). Reference sites with target psammophilous vegetation and degraded sites were also sampled. The target psammophilous species colonized the open sand areas immediately from the adjacent well‐preserved vegetation fragments. Out of 101 vascular plant species recorded in total in restored sites, 34 species were classified as target species, out of which 25 species were classified as threatened. After 6 years, the species richness and number of threatened species in the restored plots approached those of the reference sites. The results of multivariate analyses revealed that spontaneous development of restored plots run fast towards psammophilous vegetation. The optimal restoration strategy of eutrophicated open sandy grasslands should consist in creating a mosaic of topsoil removal patches followed by disturbance after some time and preservation of still existing fragments of target vegetation.

中文翻译：

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在退化的开放沙质草地上清除表土：我们能否快速恢复受威胁的植被？

天然开放的内陆沙地草原是欧洲受到高度威胁的栖息地。最初的营养贫乏的栖息地受到空中N沉积量的增加和竞争能力强的植物的扩散的影响。我们调查了中欧捷克共和国东南部退化的嗜粉草植被的恢复情况，那里竞争激烈的禾本科植物Calamagrostis epigejos在以前由宝贵的嗜湿性草原控制的许多公顷土地上形成了紧凑的覆盖物。为了暴露营养贫乏的沙子，将营养富集的上层刮下至10–30 cm的深度。通过植物社会学相关性，每年在2012年至2014年之间建立的15个永久性地块（5×5 m）中记录植被（连续5个地块）。还采样了具有靶嗜性植被的参考位点和退化位点。目标嗜粉菌物种立即从邻近保存完好的植被碎片中殖民开阔的沙地。在恢复地点总共记录的101种维管植物物种中，有34种被归为目标物种，其中有25种被归为受威胁物种。六年后 恢复地块的物种丰富度和受威胁物种数量接近参考点。多元分析的结果表明，恢复土地的自发发展向着嗜粉沙性植被快速发展。富营养化的开放沙质草地的最佳恢复策略应包括创建表土去除斑块的镶嵌图，然后经过一段时间后进行扰动，并保留目标植被中仍存在的碎片。