Integrating belowground bud bank dynamics into grassland monitoring and management

Abstract Belowground bud banks are the core regenerative organs of perennial herbaceous plants, playing an irreplaceable role in population persistence, community assembly, and ecosystem restoration. However, current grassland monitoring and management have rarely integrated this belowground system, leading to biased assessments of grassland stability (including resistance and resilience) and degradation risk, as well as critical gaps in conservation and restoration. This paper systematically reviews the classification, ecological functions, and research methods of bud banks, with a particular focus on their central role in driving community renewal and ecosystem stability by modulating resistance and resilience. As repositories of ecological memory, bud banks retain legacy traits shaped by long‐term environmental filtering, reflecting species' adaptive strategies to past disturbances. Building on this foundation, we propose a closed‐loop adaptive management framework—“understanding–monitoring–decision–adjustment”—centered on bud bank dynamics, and advocate for integrating bud bank indicators into grassland health monitoring and degradation assessment systems. This enables early warning of degradation and supports the formulation of targeted strategies, such as spatiotemporally dynamic precision grazing, differentiated restoration, and typological management. Ultimately, our goal is to transition grassland management from experience‐based paradigms to ecologically grounded frameworks, offering theoretical foundations and practical pathways for adaptive governance of grassland ecosystems.