Alexandra Sutton Student ID: 10693238

Analysis of Grassland Communities in Ford Park

Cemetery and the Impacts of Management
Intervention Strategies

Word Count: 1243

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Introduction
Ford Park Cemetery opened in 1948 (Our Landscape, 2017) holding 10.5 ha of land
currently using 4ha. The aim of this study is to identify the impact of mowing grassland
plant communities in Ford Park Cemetery by analysing the management types and
impacts on grass land species through a quadrat measurement. I hypothesise the most
recently mowed management land will have the highest species richness and unmanaged
will have the lowest species richness. According to (Kowarik et al., 2016) cemeteries are
often understudied areas with conflicts arising between the desire to maintain the
appearance of the area and the want of biodiversity to thrive. This source also outlines the
importance of cemeteries due to their natural diversity and natural variance in physical
features. The typically large area of cemeteries in this instance 10.5ha provides a range of
possibilities for ecosystem variance which allows a broad scope of organisms to evolve.
The reason this natural plant diversity does not expand exponentially is due to human
intervention through mowing although due to financial reasons more unmanaged areas are
common (Rudolph et al., 2016). (Sehrt et al., 2020) sates high mowing factor is a primary
reason for low species diversity, as most species need time to grow, they are intervened
before they are able to. A study executed by (Sehrt et al., 2020) reports reducing mowing
frequency between 1 to 2 times per season can increase species richness by 30%.
Method
A sample site for each management intervention was established within Ford Park
Cemetery on the 27th October 2020. Areas of management included recently managed
areas which has cuttings visible from recent mowing, past managed which did not have
cuttings visible but hadn’t been mown within 3 months, old managed areas had not been
mown for more than 3 months and unmanaged areas which had not been mown for
several years. Data was collected using random sampling using 42 50cmx50cm quadrats
which were randomly thrown into the sample areas. Collected data from this quadrat
included total percentage cover and percentage coverage of each species. Species
counted included; bare ground, ferns, grasses, lichens, mosses, rushes, sedges,
herbaceous dicots woody dicots. Sward height in cm and number of each species present
were counted and recorded in a table on site. These values were then used to calculate
statistical variance between data points and mean values.
Results
The data presents different patterns occurring at each variable. Sward height values at
each management intervention shows an increase in all categories, the same pattern can
be seen for woody percentage cover. However, the remaining data varies in pattern with
grass coverage and species richness on a general decline while the remaining herbaceous
cover and vegetation cover having little variance between data sets.
Table 1: Statistical collection and analysis of data collected from Ford Park Cemetery
Managemen Sward % total Total % % %
t (N) height vegetation species grass herbs woody
(cm) richness
Recent (8) Mean 5.1 122.6 9.1 91.1 27.4 0
SD 2.1 29.6 3.0 13.7 20.7 0
Media 5.0 111.0 8.0 95.0 28.5 0
n
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 Min 2.0 95.0 6.0 59.0 5.0 0
Max 8.0 176.0 14.0 100. 55.0 0
Past (11) Mean 11.9 119.6 10.8 63.0 55.6 0
SD 2.8 34.8 2.8 28.4 22.4 0
Media 12.0 125.0 11.0 70.0 50.0 0
n
Min 7.0 60.0 4.0 10.0 28.0 0
Max 16.0 175.0 14.0 100 93.0 0
Old(17) Mean 23.8 119.7 8.2 76.7 41.4 0.4
SD 9.9 29.8 3.4 22.2 24.6 1.2
Media 23.0 117.5 8.0 89.5 42.5 0
n
Min 11.0 67.0 2.0 30.0 0 0
Max 44.0 189.0 14.0 100 94.0 5.0
Unmanaged Mean 54.3 118.6 6.6 40.6 39.0 39.0
(5)
SD 37.5 21.3 1.7 33.9 24.6 8.2
Media 37.0 120.0 7.0 30.0 50.0 35.0
n
Min 30.8 85.0 4.0 10.0 0 30.0
Max 120.0 140.0 8.0 98.0 60.0 50.0

Table 1 shows results of calculations done with all data collected from every management
type in the cemetery. The longer the grassland is left unmanaged the numerical data for
sward height and woody percentage cover is increasing in every value. The mean value of
woody percentage cover is less than 1% for each management intervention excluding
unmanaged here the mean is 39% showing significantly more woody plant species in
unmanaged areas. Sward height is also an increasing factor as the unmanaged area has
the greatest maximum value at 120cm while recently managed areas largest value is 8cm,
the minimum value of recently managed areas is 2cm. This is showing a significant
difference between sward height as shown in Table 1.

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Figure 1: Total vegetation cover percentage shown at management intervention sites at
Ford Park Cemetery
As shown in Figure 1 there is little deviation between the mean values of each
management, proving the percentage of vegetation cover is very similar throughout.
Recently managed intervention resulted in the highest mean of 122.6% cover while the
lowest at 118.6% in unmanaged. A small variation shows the collected data was similar in
value making increasing the reliability of results. The mean values and standard deviation
can be seen with little variance in Table 1.
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10

8
Species Richness

0
Recent Past Old Unmanaged
Management Interventions

Figure 2: Mean species richness at management intervention sites at Ford Park Cemetery
Figure 2 shows the mean value for past management is the largest with a value of 10.8 in
comparison to unmanage grassland at 6.6, therefore showing the past managed areas has
the highest species richness. The error bars show there is little variation from the mean for
the unmanage areas as there is little difference between the species richness for each
data collection point in the unmanaged areas. However, there is a larger variation between
data in each other management type data collected.

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 100

90

80

70
Grass cover (%)

60

50

40

30

20

10

0
Recent Past Old Unmanaged
Management Intervention

Figure 3: The mean grass coverage percentage at each management intervention sites at
Ford Park Cemetery
Grass coverage percentage has the largest value in recently managed areas as can be
seen in Figure 3 with a mean value of 91.1%, there is little deviation from the mean here
meaning the results are more accurate. The unmanaged area comparatively has the
lowest mean value at 40.6% with the largest error bar, this indicates the results are more
widely spread increasing the possibility of inaccuracies.

60

50

40
Herbaceous cover (%)

30

20

10

0
Recent Past Old Unmanaged

Management Intervention

Figure 4: The mean herbaceous coverage percentage at each management intervention

sites at Ford Park Cemetery
The error bars are predominantly overlapping in Figure 4 showing little variation between
data sets of management interventions, Table 1 shows there is little deviation also. The
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mean values are similar resulting in a similar herbaceous percentage coverage in every
management area.
Discussion
To conclude, the aim of the study was achieved as all areas of varying management types
were effectively analysed and conclusions reached about management interventions. All
results corelate similarly to published studies hereby reinforcing the accuracy and validity
of results taken. Table 1 data shows sward height increases as grassland communities are
left unmanaged, a study by (Sehrt et al., 2020) agrees as they state grass species are
popular in recently managed areas and that these areas need to be left to allow taller
species to grow. Woody plants are more popular in unmanaged areas as seen in Table 1
as they do not cope well with constant defoliation and disruption of soils (Sehrt et al.,
2020). Woody plants thrive in unmanaged areas as they are a taller species so are better
able to compete for light, they have a thick root system which peculates deep into the soils
and are highly efficient in nutrient cycling allowing this species to compete for water and
other soil nutrients (Breman and Kessler, 1997). Species richness in Figure 2 shows the
decline from past managed to unmanaged, this is due to difficulty of seedling
establishment (Sehrt et al., 2020). The unmanaged areas are dominated by few species
such as woody plants, making it difficult for seeds to find an area to germinate with enough
available light. These findings are supported by (Rudolph et al., 2016). This same study
reports the more effective way to increase species richness is to reduce mowing
frequency. This validates the hypothesis as findings from this study and varying published
studies support the notion of species richness decline as areas are left unmanaged.
Select areas of Ford Park Cemetery should be allowed to revegetate along with reduced
mowing strategies to effectively manage the area. Consideration needs to be given to
ensure the revegetation allowance is not seen as neglect of tombstones and surrounding
areas (Kowarik et al., 2016). Visitors should be informed of management strategies in
place and the important ecological value of the grounds, paths should be maintained to
provide access to public. The limitations of this study reduce the reliability, to increase this
the same number of samples should be collected from each area of management. Finally,
random sampling should be carried out by placing tape measures around the study site
and using random number generators to randomly allocate where the quadrat would be
placed. Throwing the quadrat is bias.

References
Breman, H. and Kessler, J., 1997. The potential benefits of agroforestry in the Sahel and
other semi-arid regions. Perspectives for Agronomy, 25(1-3), pp.39-47.
Ford-park-cemetery.org. 2017. Our Landscape. [online] Available at: <http://www.ford-
park-cemetery.org/index.php/landscape-wildlife/our-landscape> [Accessed 5 December
2020].
Kowarik, I., Buchholz, S., von der Lippe, M, Seitz, B. (2016) Biodiversity functions of urban
cemeteries: Evidence from one of the largest Jewish cemeteries in Europe. Urban
Forestry and Urban Greening, 19:68-78.

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Rudolph, M., Velbert, F., Schwenzfeier, S., Kleinebecker, T. and Klaus, V., 2016. Patterns
and potentials of plant species richness in high- and low-maintenance urban grasslands.
Applied Vegetation Science, 20(1), pp.18-27.
Sehrt, M., Bossdorf, O., Freitag, M/. Bucharova, A. (2020) Less is more! Rapid increase in
plant species richness after reduced mowing in urban grasslands. Basic and Applied
Ecology, 42:47-53.