Although grazing was a part of calcareous fens’ disturbance regimes, few studies have examined the impact of grazing release in these systems, and managers are reticent to experiment with restoring grazing for management purposes. Here I describe vegetation, edaphic, and hydrologic differences in a Wisconsin calcareous fen between areas long-protected (since 1987) from cattle grazing and those protected in 2011, 2.5 years before the study. Vegetation surveys found that the long-protected areas had significantly lower floristic quality, fewer rare and specialist species, and more woody-plant encroachment than areas abandoned in 2011. Interviews with a farmer and air-photo interpretations suggested that vegetation changed in the protected areas around the time of abandonment. Known edaphic and hydrologic drivers of vegetation change in fens (volumetric water content, electrical conductivity, nutrient availability) could not account for the vegetation differences between the two areas. Site histories found no events accounting for these vegetation differences other than grazing. These results suggest that grazing release led to increased shrub encroachment, decline in floristic quality, and-possibly- a decline in specialist and rare species.

尽管放牧是石灰性fen虫骚扰制度的一部分，但很少有研究检查放牧对这些系统的影响，管理人员不愿尝试出于管理目的恢复放牧。在这里，我描述了威斯康星州石灰性）中长期受到保护（自1987年起）不受牛放牧的地区与2011年（受研究前2.5年）受到保护的地区之间的植被，深层和水文差异。植被调查发现，与2011年废弃的地区相比，长保护区的植物区系质量显着降低，稀有和专业树种更少，木本植物受到侵害的程度更高。对农民的采访和空中照像的解释表明，保护区的植被发生了变化被遗弃的时候 已知的以芬斯为单位的植被变化的水文和水文驱动因素（体积水含量，电导率，养分利用率）无法解释这两个地区之间的植被差异。遗址历史发现，除了放牧以外，没有其他事件可以解释这些植被差异。这些结果表明，放牧放牧导致灌木丛侵害增加，植物质量下降，并且可能导致专门和稀有物种的下降。