Knowledge of fishes' habitat requirements is an essential tool for species conservation. We examined the habitat requirements of nine native freshwater fish species using 165 undisturbed or minimally disturbed sites from eight river basins in western Iberia (northern and central Portugal). Six environmental descriptors were considered at the regional level, and six descriptors at a local scale. Statistical associations between local assemblage structure and environmental variables were quantified by canonical correspondence analyses. Logistic regression was performed for each species to identify regional and local factors related to its distribution at the sample sites. The results suggested a reasonable degree of specialisation in the use of local variables and dependence on regional variables. Logistic regression models showed a good adjustment (0.75 < AUC < 0.93). Results of habitat modelling using minimally disturbed sites helped to clarify species preferences for specific abiotic drivers.
The assessment of the habitat condition is the first step of conservation actions and several tools are available to assess wetlands. However, only a few tools are adapted to the priority habitat Mediterranean temporary ponds. Thus, our objectives were (i) to identify biological indicators associated with the different conservation status of Mediterranean temporary ponds and (ii) to create an efficient evaluation tool for non-experts using indicators of conservation status. A total of 87 ponds were sampled in southwest Portugal to assess the presence of plants, large branchiopods, amphibians, threatened voles and bats. Ponds with favourable conservation status showed higher species richness of plants, large branchiopods and amphibians. We identified eighteen indicators for favourable ponds: 15 plants, one large branchiopod and two amphibian taxa. We propose a new tool to assess the conservation status of Mediterranean temporary ponds based on the presence of these indicators. This tool is an alternative to other common, but timeconsuming, methods and can be readily used by trained practitioners. The replication and adaptation of this tool to other regions and habitats enables the collection of comparable data and the geographical scaling-up of the assessments.
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