scholarly journals Influence of grazing on populations of the specialist grasshopper Mioscirtus wagneri inhabiting hypersaline habitats in La Mancha Region, Central Spain

2018 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-81
Author(s):  
María Pilar Aguirre ◽  
Joaquin Ortego ◽  
Pedro J. Cordero
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Habitat Quality ◽  
Vegetation Cover ◽  
Conservation Status ◽  
Grazing Impact ◽  
Central Spain ◽  
Hypersaline Ecosystems ◽  
La Mancha ◽  
Ecological Importance ◽  
Educational Campaigns

Grazing is an influential land use that has introduced profound changes in worldwide landscapes, ecosystems and their species. In this paper, we analysed the influence of grazing on the presence and abundance of the endangered Mioscirtuswagneri, a monophagous grasshopper inhabiting inland hypersaline ecosystems in Spain and showing a marked spatial and genetic fragmentation. Using count transects, we analyzed the presence and abundance of this grasshopper in relation to specific vegetation cover and the abundance of goat and sheep droppings, considering this variable as a surrogate of livestock activity and grazing impact. We found that both the presence and abundance of M.wagneri were positively related to the cover of its host plant Suaedavera and negatively associated with the abundance of droppings. We conclude that dropping abundance is a useful parameter to assess livestock impact and evaluate habitat quality and the conservation status of M.wagneri and many other singular species of macroinvertebrates inhabiting inland hypersaline ecosystems. We highly recommend the use of electric shepherd fencing around all sensitive and protected areas where inland hypersaline ecosystems are present in order to deter livestock. We also suggest intensive educational campaigns for farmers and shepherds, revealing the ecological importance of these singular and unique habitats for rare and exclusive species like M.wagneri and many other coexisting plants and invertebrates.

scholarly journals Current Condition of Pannonic Salt Steppes at Their Distribution Limit: What Do Indicator Species Reveal about Habitat Quality?

Plants ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 530
Author(s):  
Zuzana Dítě ◽  
Róbert Šuvada ◽  
Tibor Tóth ◽  
Pavol Eliáš Jun ◽  
Vladimír Píš ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Habitat Quality ◽  
Indicator Species ◽  
Good Condition ◽  
Central Area ◽  
East Central Europe ◽  
Conservation Practice ◽  
Ecological Conditions ◽  
Typical Habitat ◽  
Priority Habitat

Little is known about the suite of ecological conditions under which characteristic species may continue to develop under the pressure of recent habitat deterioration. We aimed to determine the niche of three indicator species of the priority habitat Pannonic salt steppes and to find out how their vegetation composition, land use, and soil chemistry mirror the current condition of their typical habitat. A plot-based vegetation survey was conducted in degraded and in pristine (reference) inland salt steppes in East-Central Europe. We confirmed decreased habitat quality at their northern geographical limit. Most of the sites there showed a strong prevalence of generalists (e.g., Elytrigia repens) and lack of specialists, both resulting from lowered habitat extremity and inappropriate land use (abandonment). A small proportion of plots (19%) were in the same good condition as the reference vegetation in the central area. Soil analyses revealed that the studied halophytes are able to persist on desalinized soils if the land use is suitable. The occurrence of the annual Camphorosma annua (Amaranthaceae) was driven largely by abiotic stress; grazing alone is insufficient for its long-term persistence, while the perennial Artemisia santonicum (Asteraceae) and Tripolium pannonicum (Asteraceae) have higher survival chances as they are able to coexist with generalists. Overall habitat quality can be reliably determined from the analyzed ecological conditions of indicator species. The outcomes of the presented work are relevant for conservation practice and can serve as a quick tool for assessing the current stage of other grassland habitats.

scholarly journals Multi-Scenario Analysis of Habitat Quality in the Yellow River Delta by Coupling FLUS with InVEST Model

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (5) ◽  
pp. 2389
Author(s):  
Qinglong Ding ◽  
Yang Chen ◽  
Lingtong Bu ◽  
Yanmei Ye
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Land Use Change ◽  
Habitat Quality ◽  
Scenario Analysis ◽  
Yellow River ◽  
The Yellow River ◽  
Cultivated Land ◽  
Invest Model ◽  
Unused Land ◽  
Dongying City

The past decades were witnessing unprecedented habitat degradation across the globe. It thus is of great significance to investigate the impacts of land use change on habitat quality in the context of rapid urbanization, particularly in developing countries. However, rare studies were conducted to predict the spatiotemporal distribution of habitat quality under multiple future land use scenarios. In this paper, we established a framework by coupling the future land use simulation (FLUS) model with the Intergrated Valuation of Environmental Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST) model. We then analyzed the habitat quality change in Dongying City in 2030 under four scenarios: business as usual (BAU), fast cultivated land expansion scenario (FCLE), ecological security scenario (ES) and sustainable development scenario (SD). We found that the land use change in Dongying City, driven by urbanization and agricultural reclamation, was mainly characterized by the transfer of cultivated land, construction land and unused land; the area of unused land was significantly reduced. While the habitat quality in Dongying City showed a degradative trend from 2009 to 2017, it will be improved from 2017 to 2030 under four scenarios. The high-quality habitat will be mainly distributed in the Yellow River Estuary and coastal areas, and the areas with low-quality habitat will be concentrated in the central and southern regions. Multi-scenario analysis shows that the SD will have the highest habitat quality, while the BAU scenario will have the lowest. It is interesting that the ES scenario fails to have the highest capacity to protect habitat quality, which may be related to the excessive saline alkali land. Appropriate reclamation of the unused land is conducive to cultivated land protection and food security, but also improving the habitat quality and giving play to the versatility and multidimensional value of the agricultural landscape. This shows that the SD of comprehensive coordination of urban development, agricultural development and ecological protection is an effective way to maintain the habitat quality and biodiversity.

Future scenarios impact on land use change and habitat quality in Lithuania

2021 ◽  
pp. 111101
Author(s):  
Eduardo Gomes ◽  
Miguel Inácio ◽  
Katažyna Bogdzevič ◽  
Marius Kalinauskas ◽  
Donalda Karnauskaitė ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Land Use Change ◽  
Habitat Quality ◽  
Future Scenarios

scholarly journals Spatial distribution of the Barbary Partridge (Alectoris barbara) in Sardinia explained by land use and climate

2021 ◽  
Vol 67 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gianpasquale Chiatante ◽  
Marta Giordano ◽  
Anna Vidus Rosin ◽  
Oreste Sacchi ◽  
Alberto Meriggi
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Conservation Status ◽  
Distance Sampling ◽  
Strong Relationship ◽  
European Population ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
Brood Rearing ◽  
Management Actions ◽  
Negative Effect ◽  
Study Sites

AbstractMore than half of the European population of the Barbary Partridge is in Sardinia; nonetheless, the researches concerning this species are very scarce, and its conservation status is not defined because of a deficiency of data. This research aimed to analyse the habitat selection and the factors affecting the abundance and the density of the Barbary Partridge in Sardinia. We used the data collected over 8 years (between 2004 and 2013) by spring call counts in 67 study sites spread on the whole island. We used GLMM to define the relationships between the environment (topography, land use, climate) both the occurrence and the abundance of the species. Moreover, we estimated population densities by distance sampling. The Barbary Partridge occurred in areas at low altitude with garrigue and pastures, avoiding woodlands and sparsely vegetated areas. We found a strong relationship between the occurrence probability and the climate, in particular, a positive relation with temperature and a negative effect of precipitation, especially in April–May, during brood rearing. Furthermore, dry crops positively affected the abundance of the species. We estimated a density of 14.1 partridges per km2, similar to other known estimates. Our findings are important both because they increase the knowledge concerning this species, which is considered data deficient in Italy, and because they are useful to plan management actions aimed to maintain viable populations if necessary.

scholarly journals Assessing Habitat Vulnerability and Loss of Naturalness: Applying the GLOBIO3 Model in the Czech Republic

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (10) ◽  
pp. 5355
Author(s):  
Vilém Pechanec ◽  
Ondřej Cudlín ◽  
Miloš Zapletal ◽  
Jan Purkyt ◽  
Lenka Štěrbová ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Czech Republic ◽  
Habitat Quality ◽  
Species Abundance ◽  
Biodiversity Loss ◽  
Infrastructure Development ◽  
Natural Habitats ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
New Equation ◽  
The Impact

Global and regional biodiversity loss is caused by several drivers including urban development, land use intensification, overexploitation of natural resources, environmental pollution, and climate change. The main aim of our study was to adapt the GLOBIO3 model to the conditions of the Czech Republic (CR) to assess loss of naturalness and biodiversity vulnerability at the habitat level on a detailed scale across the entire CR. An additional aim was to assess the main drivers affecting the biodiversity of habitat types. The GLOBIO3 model was adapted to CZ-GLOBIO by adapting global to local scales and using habitat quality and naturalness data instead of species occurrence data. The total mean species abundance (MSA) index of habitat quality, calculated from the spatial overlay of the four MSA indicators by our new equation, reached the value 0.62. The total value of MSA for natural and near-natural habitats was found to be affected mainly by infrastructure development and fragmentation. Simultaneously, intensity of land use change and atmospheric nitrogen deposition contributed primarily to the low total value of MSA for distant natural habitats. The CZ-GLOBIO model can be an important tool in political decision making to reduce the impact of the main drivers on habitat biodiversity in the CR.

scholarly journals Geospatial analysis of wetlands based on land use/land cover dynamics using remote sensing and GIS in Sindh, Pakistan

2021 ◽  
Vol 104 (2) ◽  
pp. 003685042110261
Author(s):  
Hamza Islam ◽  
Habibuulah Abbasi ◽  
Ahmed Karam ◽  
Ali Hassan Chughtai ◽  
Mansoor Ahmed Jiskani
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Land Cover ◽  
Vegetation Cover ◽  
Vegetation Index ◽  
Kappa Statistics ◽  
Natural Ecosystem ◽  
Land Use Land Cover ◽  
Dry Land ◽  
Lulc Changes ◽  
Manchar Lake

In this study, the Land Use/Land Cover (LULC) change has been observed in wetlands comprises of Manchar Lake, Keenjhar Lake, and Chotiari Reservoir in Pakistan over the last four decades from 1972 to 2020. Each wetland has been categorized into four LULC classes; water, natural vegetation, agriculture land, and dry land. Multitemporal Landsat satellite data including; Multi-Spectral Scanner (MSS), Thematic Mapper (TM), and Operational Land Imager (OLI) images were used for LULC changes evaluation. The Supervised Maximum-likelihood classifier method is used to acquire satellite imagery for detecting the LULC changes during the whole study period. Soil adjusted vegetation index technique (SAVI) was also used to reduce the effects of soil brightness values for estimating the actual vegetation cover of each study site. Results have shown the significant impact of human activities on freshwater resources by changing the natural ecosystem of wetlands. Change detection analysis showed that the impacts on the land cover affect the landscape of the study area by about 40% from 1972 to 2020. The vegetation cover of Manchar Lake and Keenjhar Lake has been decreased by 6,337.17 and 558.18 ha, respectively. SAVI analysis showed that soil profile is continuously degrading which vigorously affects vegetation cover within the study area. The overall classification accuracy and Kappa statistics showed an accuracy of >90% for all LULC mapping studies. This work demonstrates the LULC changes as a critical monitoring basis for ongoing analyses of changes in land management to enable decision-makers to establish strategies for effectively using land resources.

scholarly journals Trade and the conservation status of the family Psittacidae in Venezuela

1991 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 153-169 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Desenne ◽  
Stuart D. Strahl
Keyword(s):  
Conservation Status ◽  
Field Studies ◽  
Remedial Action ◽  
Trade Data ◽  
Orinoco Delta ◽  
The Family ◽  
Priority Order ◽  
Key Sites ◽  
Educational Campaigns ◽  
National Trade

SummaryAn assessment of trade in parrots throughout Venezuela, 1988–1989, reveals alarmingly high internal and international levels. The national trade has main outlets in major cities, but is now compounded by the use of feathers for Indian artifacts sold to tourists. International trade involves illegal export chiefly from the Orinoco Delta, the majority of such birds (65,000–75,000) destined for Guyana. The large macaws suffer badly from both types of trade, but owing to its restricted range the endemic Amazona barbadensis is perhaps the most critically threatened species. Other species are assessed and, along with key sites, identified in priority order for remedial action, which should include more detailed field studies, rigorous trade data analysis, exchange of trade data with major neighbours, census and monitoring technique improvements, educational campaigns, and strict breeding facility control.

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