Monitoring of the grassland communities in the East Carpathians Biosphere Reserve - Basis for the future ILTER site?

The semi-natural meadows belong to the most endangered plant communities in Slovakia. Very valuable grassland types are distributed in the National Pa rk Poloniny - the Slovak part of the East Carpathians Biosphere Reserve (NE Slovakia), but large areas of grasslands are abandoned there. We establish ed 14 permanent plots with different management regimes for the monitoring of changes in the structure of plant communities. Typical permanent plot co nsists of 4 larger squares (size 5x4 m) for recording of plant community an d 4 smaller squares (size 1 x 1 in, divided into 9 parts) for recording of changes in plant populations. The species composition and abundance data are sampled each year, starting in 1994 and 1995. Aim of this research is to find optimal type of managemen t which allow to keep typical structure and composition of plant communitie s and will be economically acceptable, as well. This set of permanent plots can be considered as representative for given territory, because it covers all endangered grassland communities and 75% of meadow and wetland plant s pecies known from the territory. First results and their implication for management of grasslands in NP Polo niny are discussed in this paper. Because of East Carpathians Biosphere Res erve was identified as potential LTER site during ILTER workshop in Budapes t (June 1999), possibilities for use of these plots for LTER site establish ment are discussed, too.