Statistical Analysis
The normal distribution and homoscedasticity were assessed using the Shapiro-Wilk Test and Levene’s Test, respectively. To compare the vegetation characteristics (Total cover, bare soil, litter and stone cover), vegetation condition scores (BS, LF, WPC, Prod and RCS) and species diversity indices (species richness, species evenness, Shannon and Simpson diversity indices), independent Student’s t-Test was used. To assess the significant difference between pre and post mulching and between the control and the mulch treatments, we used a two-way ANOVA. In this model, year (pre vs. post mulching; 2017 and 2019), treatment (control vs. mulch) and their interaction were introduced as independent variables, and vegetation cover extracted by MSAVI was introduced as the dependent variable to the model. In addition, a t-student test was conducted to detect significant differences between pre and post mulching and between control and mulch treatments. All statistical tests were performed using the SPSS var. 21.0 software.