Plant traits variability within and among populations in the context of calcareous grassland restoration

In Western Europe, abandonment of traditional forms of agriculture has caused the fragmentation of semi-natural grasslands, affecting ecosystems functioning as well as population survival. Habitat restoration has become a crucial aspect of grasslands conservation, and one of the main issues is evaluating restoration success and setting appropriate criteria to do so. Indicators used to judge whether a restoration has been successful may concern a wide range of organisms. They may be defined at different geographical scales and may concern various levels of biodiversity organization. Among them, population parameters are less represented despite their usefulness. To consider restoration as a success, restored populations of targeted species should demonstrably possess characteristics allowing their dispersal, reproduction, growth and adaptation to the environment. In this thesis, the use of plant population parameters for evaluating grassland restoration was assessed based on a literature review. Then, the success of calcareous grassland restoration was determined regarding colonization of restored grasslands by five calcareous grasslands species; Helianthemum nummularium, Hippocrepis comosa, Potentilla tabernaemontani, Sanguisorba minor and Scabiosa columbaria. Population establishment and intra-specific functional trait variability in response to the environment were observed and compared among restored and reference populations of those species, through field inventories and in-situ traits measurements in calcareous grasslands of south Belgium. Moreover, a glasshouse experiment was set-up with the aim to evaluate the intra-specific variability in response to drought stress in reference populations of P. tabernaemontani. The results indicated that population parameters were less well studied for evaluating grassland restoration success compared to indicators related to ecosystems and communities. The population parameters used to assess the success of calcareous grassland restoration showed that the study species colonized restored sites and established new populations. The fitness of the restored populations was very high. High intra-specific trait variability was highlighted at a very local scale in the reference habitat. Individuals exhibited high leaf dry matter content (LDMC), low specific leaf area (SLA) and low vegetative height in relation to low soil depth and high potential incident radiation (PDIR). These environmental variables are possibly linked to the availability of soil moisture. Further, the relationship between traits and environmental variables was not always consistent in restored sites. However, the intra-specific variability of plant traits was similar in the reference and restored grasslands. Finally, the findings from the glasshouse experiment suggested that individuals originating from drier parts of calcareous grasslands better survive drought stress. The overall conclusion of this thesis is rather optimistic concerning restored populations of the five specialist plant species studied, specifically regarding their colonization, persistence and response to the environment or to potential climate change. The conclusions must, however, be modified depending on the reference ecosystem used as a model. This approach has to be integrated into a multi-scales and a multi-species approach to fully evaluate restoration outputs. Yet, this thesis has contributed to the understanding of population responsiveness to habitat restoration, as well as to the evaluation of restoration success of calcareous grasslands in Belgium.