Abstract
Increasing agricultural intensification, combined with land transformation and fragmentation, poses significant threats to biodiversity. While extensively cultivated landscapes serve as vital refuges against biodiversity loss, they are modified by land abandonment and intensification. Orchard meadows in Central Europe represent traditional extensive land management systems, exhibiting high biodiversity. Comprising cultivated grasslands and scattered fruit trees, orchard meadows feature structures rich in different habitats supporting a diverse flora and fauna. However, their decreasing economic importance in recent decades has resulted in severe degradation or abandonment. Despite their importance for biodiversity conservation, there remains no comprehensive overview of orchard meadow biodiversity and management in Central Europe. This review aims to summarize existing knowledge on orchard meadows’ role in biodiversity conservation and the effects of management practices on habitat diversity and quality at both smaller (structure and microhabitats, local scale) and larger scales (surrounding landscape, regional scale). The first part focuses on orchard meadow biodiversity, including both plants and animals and their link to landscape-scale factors. Biodiversity in orchard meadows is predominantly affected by patch size, determining species richness and composition, and connectivity to neighbouring orchard meadows, influencing species migration and recolonization success. The second part evaluates management impacts, illustrating differences in the benefits of mowing versus grazing across taxonomic groups. An intermediate management intensity for orchard meadows determines their conservation value in terms of species composition, varying among different taxonomic groups. To prevent area loss and abandonment of orchard meadows, we advocate for political and public support, along with incentives for farmers to maintain their biodiversity.