Abstract ID: 3.13605 | Accepted as Talk | Talk | TBA | TBA

Over centuries, mountain pastures have been traditional agricultural elements in the alpine regions in Europe. Seasonal grazing has led to species- and nutrient rich alpine grassland combined with human maintenance above and below tree line. Due to societal change and economic pressure within the last 50 years many of those central European mountain pastures had been abandoned (i.e. our study area ‘Brunnenkopfalm’ in the Ammer Mountains, Germany, 1400-1700 m a.s.l). Since 2018, this 5 ha pasture has been restocked annually with Murnau-Werdenfelser cattle, which is a small-statured local breed. Due to joint efforts of local farmers and an interdisciplinary re- search consortium, stocking rate, plant species diversity, biomass production, as well as carbon and nitrogen cycling has been moni- tored annually. Our study reveals that re-grazing safeguards plant biodiversity and increases floristic evenness, while it decreases over- all plant cover and plant community biomass. Interestingly, frequent intra-seasonal regrowth after grazing yields an overall increase in cumulative annual biomass. Experimental evidence also proves soil organic carbon (SOC) accumulation with re-grazing, while no nitro- gen leaching from the pasture is observed so far.