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Cultural landscapes, shaped by centuries of traditional low-intensity agricultural practices, have been declining all over the world. In Transylvania (Romania), traditionally mown and extensively grazed grasslands have been part of a diverse landscape mosaic for centuries. In contrast to Western European countries, these species-rich grasslands are still present in Transylvania, but have declined in recent years, due to the pressure of intensification or abandonment, and inconsistent land use policies. The quality of these grasslands could easily be assessed using plants and butterflies, which are considered among the best indicators for habitat quality because of their characteristic response to land use change. Our study aimed to assess butterfly and plant community assemblages, richness and diversity in Transylvania’s most typical grassland type, by using transect and relevé methods. We investigated the drivers of change in butterfly and plant community assemblages, and decline in biodiversity of basiphilous dry grasslands. We found that present and past land use practices, geographic distance between sites and soil physical–chemical characteristics have major impacts on different aspects of plant and butterfly diversity (like species composition and richness). Grasslands that were converted to croplands in the past have lost their typical species assemblages and have not completely recovered in the last 30 years. Mown grasslands supported the most diverse communities of butterflies and plants, and diversity declined with land use change to extensive and then intensively grazed pastures. For the conservation of basiphilous dry grasslands in Transylvania, we recommend a case-by-case analysis of grasslands, with emphasis on prioritizing long-term traditional mowing when applying agro-environmental schemes.

Abstract This report describes the Romanian Grassland Database (RGD), registered under EU-RO-008 in the Global Index of Vegetation-Plot Databases (GIVD). This collaborative initiative aims to collect all available vegetation-plot data (relevés) of grasslands and other open habitats from the territory of Romania to provide them for science, nationally and internationally, e.g. via the European Vegetation Archive (EVA) and the global database “sPlot”. The database mainly contains vegetation-plots from not only wet, mesic, dry, saline, alpine and rocky grasslands, but also other vegetation types like heathlands, mires, ruderal, segetal, aquatic and cryptogam-dominated vegetation. Currently, 21,685 relevés have mainly been digitised from literature sources (90%), while the remainder comes from individual unpublished sources (10%). We report on the background and history of the RGD, explain its “Data Property and Governance Rules” under which data are contributed and retrieved, and outline how the RGD can contribute to research in the fields of vegetation ecology, macroecology and conservation.? Abbreviations: EVA = European Vegetation Archive; GIVD = Global Index of Vegetation-Plot Databases; RGD = Romanian Grassland Database. Submitted: 4 September 2017; first decision: 5 October 2017; accepted: 5 October 2017