Gerhard Ernst Overbeck

Societal Impact Statement: The equitable recognition of the world's open ecosystems is critical for climate justice and societal well‐being. These ecosystems provide essential services, like carbon storage, water security, and biodiversity protection, that strengthen resilience to climate change. Yet, they remain overlooked in climate finance and policy frameworks that privilege forests. By highlighting their contributions and advocating for their inclusion in international mechanisms, this Policy Brief supports more balanced environmental governance. Its recommendations aim to guide policymakers, civil society, and legislators toward strategies that ensure climate security and equitable resource distribution for present and future generations.

Introduction: Grasslands worldwide have been extensively converted to exotic tree plantations, resulting in persistent degradation and limited natural recovery after tree removal. In southern Brazil, pine plantations alter soil conditions and create dense litter layers that restrict native plant regeneration, highlighting the need for active restoration. Objectives: We evaluated direct seeding, turf transplantation, and their combination for restoring a South Brazilian coastal grassland following pine plantation removal. Methods: Following a prescribed burn, we established a randomized block experiment with four treatments: direct seeding, turf transplantation, combined seeding and turf transplantation (each at half propagule input), and an untreated control. Vegetation cover, species richness, and community composition during the initial restoration phase. Results: All restoration treatments increased species richness relative to the control. Direct seeding produced the highest vegetation cover, although it did not differ from the combined treatment, while turf transplantation achieved similar species richness despite lower cover. The combined treatment produced cover and richness within the range of the individual techniques, suggesting that combining methods can achieve comparable short‐term outcomes with reduced propagule inputs. Conclusion: Our results indicate that propagule limitation can constrain early grassland recovery following pine removal and that active reintroduction of native species can promote vegetation establishment. Direct seeding rapidly increased vegetation cover, whereas turf transplantation contributed to native species establishment and vegetative expansion. Combining both techniques may provide a practical approach to simultaneously promote vegetation cover and native species enrichment during early restoration.

Introduction: The restoration of grassland ecosystems in southern Brazil remains limited by the absence of a structured supply chain for native seeds and seedlings. Objectives: Here, we present the first evaluation in Brazil of mechanized, multi‐species seed harvesting from native grassland remnants using a brush harvester. We assessed the species richness and abundance of the harvested seed mixes, evaluated their emergence potential, and discussed next steps for research and practical applications of harvested seed mixes in grassland restoration. Methods: The harvests were conducted at different sites during the spring: three in November 2022 and one in November 2023. Samples of 5 g were sorted in the laboratory (including separation, identification, and counting), and 5 g were used for greenhouse emergence tests. Results: Across sorting and emergence, we recorded 81 species, up to 759 seeds/g, and high seedling emergence in greenhouse tests, up to 303.3 seedlings/g on average. Conclusion: These results demonstrate that brush harvesting has strong potential to collect propagules with high emergence capacity in southern Brazilian grasslands.

The South Brazilian Highland Grasslands are species-rich ecosystems historically molded by fire and grazing. However, in many protected areas, the exclusion of disturbance has promoted dominance of tall grasses, woody encroachment and loss of typical grassland species. This no-fire policy is, at least partially, due to the lack of scientific data on the effects of fire - or absence of fire - on grassland vegetation. We investigated the effects of time since the last fire on plant community structure and composition in the Aparados da Serra and Serra Geral National Parks where prescribed burns are used for grassland management. Vegetation surveys were conducted in 56 sites grouped in three categories according to time after fire: Short (≤ 3 years), Medium (3–6 years), and Long (> 6 years). In each site, species cover, vegetation height, and structural attributes were recorded and fertile specimens were collected. We calculated phytosociological parameters to identify dominant species and performed a RDA to evaluate the relationship between species composition and vegetation structure across fire-history categories. We recorded 382 species including 23 endemic and 35 threatened taxa. The highest species richness, as well as the greatest number of endemic and threatened species, occurred in recently burned sites. Medium and Long sites showed higher shrub and dead biomass cover. These results indicate that fire maintains open vegetation structure and promotes plant diversity, highlighting the role of prescribed fire as an management tool for the conservation of South Brazilian Highland grasslands.

Introduction: Subtropical grasslands in southern Brazil suffer from ongoing degradation, while restoration initiatives of these ecosystems are still incipient. Turf transplantation appears as a promising approach for restoring these ecosystems. Objectives: We evaluated the potential of turf transplantation as a tool for introducing native species in subtropical grasslands and tested how turf size and dominant life form affect restoration outcomes. Methods: Over a 6‐month experiment, we transplanted native grassland turfs of three sizes (10 × 10, 10 × 20, and 20 × 20 cm) dominated by either prostrate or caespitose grasses. We monitored species richness, survival, colonization, and spatial expansion of vegetation. Results: Species richness was higher in larger turfs and in caespitose‐dominated turfs, and increased over time. Survival was high across all treatments (>58%) and increased with turf size, while it was not affected by life form. Colonization was positively affected by turf size but not by life form. Spatial expansion was markedly higher in turfs dominated by prostrate species and relatively greater in smaller turfs. Conclusions: Turf transplantation is a promising tool for restoring subtropical grasslands. Small turfs can provide rapid ground cover, whereas larger turfs enhance initial species richness. Our results highlight the importance of matching turf size and life form to specific restoration goals and indicate that this approach should now be tested under real field conditions and natural climatic constraints.

The world’s grasslands have outstanding biodiversity and deliver a wide range of ecosystem services to human populations, yet they are undervalued, insufficiently protected, and often degraded. This chapter gives an overview on conservation challenges and solutions. Overall, grassland areas need more formal protection, especially when considering recent and ambitious global conservation goals and large regional conservation deficits in many biomes. However, formal protection of grassland is not sufficient for their conservation: in most cases, adequate management that promotes biodiversity and ecosystem services is necessary, as most grasslands depend on grazing and/or fire for maintenance of their typical features. As grasslands, through the provisioning of fodder for animals, also are an important element in global food production, management decisions usually involve trade-offs between different goals. Likely, growing demands and global climate change will increase pressures on the conservation of grasslands globally, requiring a better dissemination of their value and a better valuation in politics. Finally, grassland restoration is necessary to reach conservation goals.