meadow
Sign in to saveright|thumb|Wildflower meadow in the Bavarian Alps thumb|Living meadow, Austria
AI overview
A meadow is an open area of land covered with grasses and wildflowers, rather than trees or forests. Meadows are important natural habitats that support diverse plants and wildlife, and they have traditionally been maintained by human activities like grazing and cutting for hay.
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Article
22 sectionsContents
- Types
- Agricultural meadows
- Transitional meadows
- Perpetual meadows
- Urban meadow
- Human intervention
- Impact of tourism
- Meadows and climate change
- Ecological consequences
- Effects of higher temperatures
- Effects of changing precipitation patterns
- Effects of reduced snowpacks
- Effects on ecological communities
- Phenological reassembly
- Extreme weather
- Meadow restorations
- Carbon storage in meadows
- Grassland degradations
- Cap-and-trade
- See also
- References
- External links
right|thumb|Wildflower meadow in the Bavarian Alps thumb|Living meadow, Austria
A meadow ( ) is an open habitat or field, vegetated by grasses, herbs, and other non-woody plants. Trees or shrubs may sparsely populate meadows, as long as they maintain an open character. Meadows can occur naturally under favourable conditions but are often artificially created from cleared shrub or woodland for the production of hay, fodder or livestock. Meadow habitats as a group are characterized as semi-natural grasslands, meaning that they are largely composed of species native to the region, with only limited human intervention.