Effect of land use and climate change on the future fate of populations of an endemic species in central Europe

The identification of optimal management strategies for a given species is a major challenge of species conservation. It becomes especially challenging when the environmental conditions are expected to change in the future, and the optimal management applied today may differ from the management that is optimal under the changed conditions (e.g. due to climate change).This study evaluates prospect of a rare plant species endemic to semi-natural grasslands in central Europe, Gentianella praecox subsp. bohemica. The number of populations of this species has declined rapidly in the last 60 years; currently, a conservation action plan has been established in the Czech Republic, where most populations of this species occur. This study uses periodic matrix models to compare different management regimes under different scenarios of climate change and to identify the optimal management in each case.Without management, populations of the species are not able to survive. Flowering individuals can occur for a long time after the cessation of management, but the extinction of the population is inevitable within several decades. Without management, even very large populations (1000 flowering individuals) will go extinct in less than 50 years. Total extinction (including seed bank) will follow several years after observation of the last flowering plant. The most suitable management is mowing and disturbance (by harrowing), which is also the best method for restoration of threatened populations. Mowing is less suitable, but it is fully sufficient for large prospering populations. When managed, even small populations (10–15 flowering individuals) are able to survive. When management is applied, future climate change may have a relatively small impact on the probability of survival of the species. Climate change will, however, increase the extinction probability of very small populations.