Résumé
Forest expansion following agricultural abandonment is major land-use and land-cover change in Europe. When agricultural activities are no longer carried on, vegetation succession leads to substantial changes in plant community composition, structure, and functional properties, from herbaceous cover to forest vegetation types. While the effect of post abandonment succession on plant communities have been well studied, the eventual consequences on ecosystems services or disservices have been much less investigated. Together, it remains unclear how ES varies during succession and which ecosystem features are driving ES changes. To fill this gap, we studied three regulation ES (soil fertility, carbon stock and erosion prevention) in a semi-mountainous zone concerned with forest expansion in the Massif central region of France. Field measurements were conducted in 30 plots spread amongst five different succession stages after abandonment, from shrubby grasslands to forest more than 70 years old. Carbon stock was determined through aboveground and belowground biomass measures and estimations. Soil fertility was approached by various indicators of soil content and texture including organic carbon, nutrients, and texture. Erosion limitation was approximated through vegetation layer index and erodibility index calculation. The results obtained showed that, as expected, some ES indicators changed significantly along with the succession run, with in particular aboveground biomass and thus carbon stock. We also show that not all succession stages differentiate between each other regarding ES indicators. The pattern of soil fertility indicators for example was found to vary non-linearly along succession. Surprisingly, some indicators did not vary with succession. This is e.g. the case of soil organic carbon and nitrogen. The relationship of these results with other features than succession stages was then investigated, including dominant plant species and species traits related to productivity and biomass accumulation.