Comparison of mowing and mulching on snail communities in wet meadows

Mowing and grazing are well-known traditional methods, but a new method, regular mulching – the fragmentation of plant material and its deposition in the area - is also increasingly used. The ecological impact of traditional management is still not fully known, and we know almost nothing about the effects of mulching.

To better understand the impact of these methods, we directly compared their effects on snails, an invertebrate taxon common in these habitats and known as good bioindicators. We experimentally manipulated management methods on two wet meadows in Northern Hungary, Europe, and surveyed their snail communities immediately before and one year after treatments. Our results showed that mowing had a detectable negative effect on the snail communities.