Responses of small mammals to land restoration after mining
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REVIEW ARTICLE
Responses of small mammals to land restoration after mining Eric Adjei Lawer
. Anne-Christine Mupepele . Alexandra-Maria Klein
Received: 14 August 2018 / Accepted: 15 February 2019 Ó Springer Nature B.V. 2019
Abstract Context Land degradation from mining influences biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. However, comparative studies using small mammal functional groups within rehabilitated mining sites are missing, despite their significant ecological contributions. Objectives We investigated the recovery of small mammals according to their trophic guild and terrestriality in restored mining sites and analyzed whether they were influenced by restoration scheme (active or passive), restoration time, mineral type, body mass and invasive species. We were especially interested in whether functional groups showed different recovery patterns across time.
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-019-00785-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Present Address: Present Address: Present Address: E. A. Lawer (&) A.-C. Mupepele A.-M. Klein Nature Conservation and Landscape Ecology, University of Freiburg, Tennenbacherstr. 4, 79106 Freiburg, Germany e-mail: [email protected]
Methods We classified small mammals into functional groups according to trophic levels distinguishing carnivores, herbivores and omnivores, and according to their terrestriality categorized as above ground-dwelling (AGD) and fossorial and/or grounddwelling individuals (FGD). We studied small mammal recovery globally following restoration of mining sites based on a meta-analysis using effect sizes. Influences of environmental variables were investigated with linear mixed models using effect sizes as response variable. Results We did not find significant differences for restoration scheme and time but we did for mineral type, body mass and invasive species in terms of population (abundance) recovery. Trajectories of functional group recoveries differed: FGD and herbivores quickly recovered after mining activities stopped, but declined later, whereas AGD, carnivores and omnivores recovered within the first few years or decades. Conclusions Our results highlight the different vulnerability of functional groups, and the importance of considering this in conservation interventions. Keywords Restoration Mining Small mammals Degradation Functional group Conservation
E. A. Lawer Department of Biodiversity Conservation and Management, University for Development Studies, Tamale, Ghana
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Landscape Ecol
Introduction Land is a key resource for humans and provides goods and services for the society (Blum 2013). Demand and consumption of land resources, such as timber and minerals, has increased with social and economic development. Global extraction of minerals through mining increased by 83.8% from 1984 to 2015 (Reichl et al. 2017). Mining plays an important role in the economies of many
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