Abstract Permanent grasslands host a high plant diversity, which sustains many ecosystem services. Thus, understanding how composition of the plant community responds to different management practices under given soil and climatic conditions is crucial for making best use of grasslands. modeling approaches may be used to explain the manifold interactions involved to sustain this diversity. We developed the dynamic, process-based ecological model DynaGraM to simulate the seasonal aboveground vegetation dynamics of semi-natural grasslands. The model allows specifying plant community by any number of species. The predictive power of the model was assessed by simulating the dynamics of a virtual mountain grassland in response to four typical management scenarios under constant climatic conditions over several decades. In our experiments, we modelled an assemblage of seven species representing contrasted plant functional types. We compared model outputs to compositions inferred from floristic records conducted in the French Jura Mountains. Irrespective of initial conditions, the simulated community converged to four distinct compositions that primarily reflected management. Overall, the results matched the functional composition inferred for each of the scenarios from the botanical records. Convergence in functional composition was reached in less than 15 years under grazing scenarios, but not less than 50 years under mowing scenarios. At quasi-equilibrium, the highest vegetation diversity was obtained for extensive grazing and the lowest for extensive mowing. Overall, this study introduces a novel and relatively simple approach to model competition and adaptation processes in plant community dynamics, thus providing a response to the key challenge of modeling multi-species grasslands.

中文翻译：

---

DynaGraM：模拟管理草地中多物种植物群落动态的基于过程的模型

摘要 永久性草原拥有丰富的植物多样性，维持着许多生态系统服务。因此，了解植物群落的组成如何在给定的土壤和气候条件下对不同的管理实践做出反应对于充分利用草地至关重要。建模方法可用于解释维持这种多样性所涉及的多种相互作用。我们开发了动态的、基于过程的生态模型 DynaGraM 来模拟半天然草地的季节性地上植被动态。该模型允许通过任意数量的物种指定植物群落。该模型的预测能力是通过模拟虚拟山地草原的动态来评估的，以响应几十年来恒定气候条件下的四种典型管理场景。在我们的实验中，我们模拟了代表对比植物功能类型的七个物种的组合。我们将模型输出与从法国侏罗山脉进行的植物区系记录推断出的成分进行了比较。无论初始条件如何，模拟社区都汇聚成四种主要反映管理的不同组成。总体而言，结果与从植物记录中推断出的每个场景的功能组成相匹配。在放牧情景下，功能组成的收敛时间不到 15 年，而在割草情景下，功能组成的收敛时间不少于 50 年。在准平衡状态下，粗放放牧的植被多样性最高，粗割的植被多样性最低。全面的，