Contrasting time-scale effects of land-use legacy on species richness, diversity and composition in Mediterranean scrubl
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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Contrasting time-scale effects of land-use legacy on species richness, diversity and composition in Mediterranean scrubland communities Nancy Gamboa-Badilla . Alfonso Segura . Guillem Bagaria Joan Pino
. Corina Basnou
.
Received: 31 March 2020 / Accepted: 1 August 2020 Ó Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract Context It is known that land-use and land-cover (LULC) changes affect plant community assembly for decades. However, both the short- and the long-term effects of contrasting LULC change pathways on this assembly are seldom explored. Objectives To assess how LULC change pathways affect woody plant community parameters (i.e. species richness, diversity and evenness) and species’
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-020-01087-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. N. Gamboa-Badilla A. Segura G. Bagaria C. Basnou J. Pino (&) Centre for Ecological Research and Forestry Applications (CREAF), 08193 Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spain e-mail: [email protected] N. Gamboa-Badilla e-mail: [email protected]
presence and abundance, compared with environmental factors and neutral processes. Methods The study was performed in Mediterranean limestone scrublands in NE Spain. Cover of each woody species was recorded in 150 scrubland plots belonging to five LULC change pathways along the past century, identified using land-cover maps and fieldwork. For each plot, total woody and herbaceous vegetation cover, local environmental variables and geographical position were recorded. Effects of these pathways and factors on plant community parameters and on species presence and abundance were assessed, considering spatial effects potentially associated to neutral processes. G. Bagaria Xarxa per a la Conservacio´ de la Natura (XCN), Sagrada Famı´lia 7, 08500 Vic, Spain J. Pino Universitat Auto`noma de Barcelona, 08193 Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spain
A. Segura e-mail: [email protected] G. Bagaria e-mail: [email protected] C. Basnou e-mail: [email protected] N. Gamboa-Badilla Instituto Tecnolo´gico de Costa Rica, Escuela de Ingenierı´a Forestal, 159-7050 Cartago, Costa Rica
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Landscape Ecol
Results Species richness and diversity were associated with LULC change pathways and elevation, while evenness was only associated with this last. Pathways and environmental variables explained similar variance in both species’ presence and cover. In general, while community parameters were affected by recentpast (1956) use, species presence and abundance were associated with far-past (pre-1900) cropping. No relevant spatial effect was detected for any studied factor. Conclusions Historical LULC changes and current environmental factors drive local-scale community assembly in Mediterranean scrublands to an equal extent, while contrasting time-scale effects are found at community and species level. Neutral, dispersalbased processes are found to be non-relevant. Keywords L
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