Search results for " Landscape."
showing 10 items of 1244 documents
The alien vascular flora of Linosa (Pelagie Islands, Strait of Sicily): update and management proposals
2017
This paper provides an up-to-date overview of the naturalized alien plants of Linosa (Pelagie Archipelago, Sicily), which includes 83 taxa and accounts for 29 % of the total island's flora. Among these plants, 6 are invasive, 49 are naturalized and 28 are casual. With respect to previous available data, our field investigations resulted in the addition of 31 new xenophytes (21 casual and 10 fully naturalized). One of these species is new to the whole European territory (Kleinia anteuphorbia), 6 of them are new to Sicily and 11 are recorded for the first time on circum-Sicilian islets. For each alien plant, we indicate the habitat where the naturalization has been observed by using the codes…
Systematic targeting of management actions as a tool to enhance conservation of traditional rural biotopes
2017
Traditional rural biotopes (TRBs), which are biologically and culturally valuable habitats maintained by low-intensity grazing and mowing, are a core element of biodiversity in Europe. During the last decades, TRBs have faced severe habitat loss and fragmentation due to agricultural modernization. Despite their well-known critical state, their conservation remains inadequate, thus raising a need to advance TRB conservation via spatial land-use planning. In this study we analyze a national GIS database on TRBs in order to examine how the current TRB network can be complemented in terms of conservation value based on known ecological characteristics. Given different target scenarios for the a…
Specialist butterflies benefit most from the ecological restoration of mires
2016
Abstract Anthropogenic disturbances cause biotic homogenization through the replacement of specialist species with generalists. Restoration has the potential to counteract these negative effects. Recently, restoration in the peatlands of Northern Europe has started to show positive effects on biodiversity. However, seldom have studies evaluated the response of insects to restoration by comparing populations prior to restoration to those thereafter with a Before-After Control-Impact (BACI) design. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether the restoration actions taken were appropriate to facilitate the successful recolonization of mire butterflies and plants. We found that, generally, dr…
EUNIS Habitat Classification: Expert system, characteristic species combinations and distribution maps of European habitats
2020
Aim The EUNIS Habitat Classification is a widely used reference framework for European habitat types (habitats), but it lacks formal definitions of individual habitats that would enable their unequivocal identification. Our goal was to develop a tool for assigning vegetation-plot records to the habitats of the EUNIS system, use it to classify a European vegetation-plot database, and compile statistically-derived characteristic species combinations and distribution maps for these habitats. Location Europe. Methods We developed the classification expert system EUNIS-ESy, which contains definitions of individual EUNIS habitats based on their species composition and geographic location. Each ha…
Assessing escapes from short rotation plantations of the invasive tree species Robinia pseudoacacia L. in Mediterranean ecosystems: a study in centra…
2016
Abstract: Black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia L.) is a fast growing tree species native to temperate North America, and widely diffused and naturalized in Europe. It is one of the candidate species for establishing bioenergy plantations on marginal lands in temperate and sub-Mediterranean regions. This potential is in contrast to its well-known invasive habit, leading to a potential damage to plant biodiversity in many European countries. Advise against black locust plantation in regions where it is already invasive has been issued by several international reports, as well as the adoption of mitigation measures (e.g., “containment” buffer zones) to prevent the spread of the species into natu…
The value of by-catch data: how species-specific surveys can serve non-target species
2019
Camera trapping has a wide range of research application, but, while research designs are often focused on the study of a single focal species, cameras can also record other non-target species. Occupancy modeling using by-catch data can be a valuable resource to gain information on these species maximizing the scientific effort and efficiency of wildlife surveys. In this study, we used by-catch data from a European wildcat (Felis silvestris silvestris) survey in Southern Italy to assess the habitat covariates determinant for the occupancy of the crested porcupine (Hystrix cristata). We recorded 33 detections at 17 out of 51 cameras (naive occupancy = 0.33). The best models fitted the data w…
Response of the N and P cycles of an old-growth montane forest in Ecuador to experimental low-level N and P amendments
2010
Abstract Atmospheric nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) depositions are expected to increase in the tropics as a consequence of increasing human activities in the next decades. In the literature, it is frequently assumed that tropical montane forests are N-limited, while tropical lowland forests are P-limited. In a low-level N and P addition experiment, we determined the short-term response of N and P cycles in a north Andean montane forest on Palaeozoic shists and metasandstones at an elevation of 2100 m a.s.l. to increased N and P inputs. We evaluated experimental N, P and N + P additions (50 kg ha −1 yr −1 of N, 10 kg ha −1 yr −1 of P and 50 kg + 10 kg ha −1 yr −1 of N and P, respectivel…
Effects of stand-level and landscape factors on understorey plant community traits in broad-leaved forest of the boreo-nemoral zone in Latvia
2019
Abstract Knowledge of the limiting processes shaping the composition of plant communities of woodland is important in conservation of biological diversity. The aim of our study was to examine the effect of stand-level factors (soil and canopy composition, age and area) and landscape factors (fragmentation of broad-leaved forest, distance to a historical manor house, and past history) on plant community trait composition in broad-leaved forest. We hypothesized that the plant functional community is shaped by both dispersal filtering due to landscape factors and by environmental characteristics. We recorded all vascular plants, described canopy composition and estimated soil characteristics i…
Evaluating structural and compositional canopy characteristics to predict the light-demand signature of the forest understorey in mixed, semi-natural…
2020
Questions: Light availability at the forest floor affects many forest ecosystem processes, and is often quantified indirectly through easy-to-measure stand characteristics. We investigated how three such characteristics, basal area, canopy cover and canopy closure, were related to each other in structurally complex mixed forests. We also asked how well they can predict the light-demand signature of the forest understorey (estimated as the mean Ellenberg indicator value for light [“EIVLIGHT”] and the proportion of “forest specialists” [“%FS”] within the plots). Furthermore, we asked whether accounting for the shade-casting ability of individual canopy species could improve predictions of EIV…
Airborne-laser-scanning-derived auxiliary information discriminating between broadleaf and conifer trees improves the accuracy of models for predicti…
2020
Managing forests for ecosystem services and biodiversity requires accurate and spatially explicit forest inventory data. A major objective of forest management inventories is to estimate the standing timber volume for certain forest areas. In order to improve the efficiency of an inventory, field based sample-plots can be statistically combined with remote sensing data. Such models usually incorporate auxiliary variables derived from canopy height models. The inclusion of forest type variables, which quantify broadleaf and conifer volume proportions, has been shown to further improve model performance. Currently, the most common way of quantifying broadleaf and conifer forest types is by ca…