Distance to edges, edge contrast and landscape fragmentation: Interactions affecting farmland birds around forest plantations

Reino, Luís; Beja, Pedro; Osborne, Patrick E.; Morgado, Rui; Fabião, António; Rotenberry, John T.

doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2008.12.011

Cited by 145 publications

(157 citation statements)

References 44 publications

(83 reference statements)

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“…This guild is associated with scattered montados and to agricultural edges, decreasing its densities with the proximity of forested edges, like eucalyptus or pine plantations. Such tendency was also recorded by Reino et al (2009) with the same group of species but in a farmland context. According to such relations between birds and habitat, the farmland species occurring in montados can be defined as generalist farmland species.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 65%

Can birds play a role as High Nature Value indicators of montado system?

et al. 2014

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Montados form a heterogeneous landscape of wooded matrix dominated by cork and/or holm oak with open areas characterized by fuzzy boundaries. Montado supports a high biological diversity associated to low intensity management and a landscape diversity provided by a continuous gradient of land cover. Among other features this permits the classification of montados as a High Nature Value (HNV) system. We assessed the role of birds as HNV indicators for montado, and tested several bird groups-farmland, edge, forest generalists and forest specialists species; and some universal indicators such as species conservation status, Shannon's diversity index and species richness. Our study areas covered the North-South distribution of cork oak in Portugal, and we surveyed the breeding bird communities across 117 sampling sites. In addition to variables related to management and sanitary status, we considered variables that characterize the landscape heterogeneity inside the montado-trees and shrub density and richness of woody vegetation. Our results suggest that specific bird guilds can be used as HNV indicators of particular typologies of montado, and highlight the need to develop an indicator that could be transversally applied to all types of montado.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 65%

Can birds play a role as High Nature Value indicators of montado system?

et al. 2014

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“…Our results also showed that borders between the focal patch and commercial plantations of E. globulus and P. radiata exhibited high-contrast habitat edges, due to substantial differences in terms of tree height and richness of tree and shrub species. Previous studies have also reported that mono-specific plantations of Eucalyptus may exhibit high-contrast edges with natural habitat due to a more simple composition and structure (Reino et al 2009). …”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…Priority sites for restoration were considered those patches with an ECON greater than 50 (ECON >50 means that more than 50% of the focal habitat edge has high contrast with its neighborhood in terms of demonstrated that the proposed restoration of high-contrast sites dissecting the focal habitat may cause an increase in the extensiveness of the focal habitat; specifically, the restoration of edges bounded by commercial plantations of P. radiata and Eucalypts which may have negative effects on species assemblages (Bustamante & Simonetti 2005;Reino et al 2009). …”

Section: Prioritization Of Restoration Sitesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Habitat Edge Contrast as an Indicator to Prioritize Sites for Ecological Restoration at the Landscape Scale

Echeverría¹,

Gatica²,

Fuentes³

2013

NatCon

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Forest restoration at the landscape level has required the development of criteria and methods to prioritize sites of restoration. In this study, we analyzed the spatial patterns of habitat contrast edge to prioritize sites for restoration in a protected area in southern Chile. The edge contrast index (ECON) was estimated and mapped for each pairwise combination of habitat type, based on community composition and structure ecological variables. Correlation length, as a measure of landscape connectivity, was calculated to analyze the effect of restoring high-contrast edge zones on focal habitat continuity. Approximately, 20% of the landscape area was composed of patches of high-contrast habitat edge (ECON ≥50%). Out of the total edge length, 91% corresponded to high-contrast edges between the focal habitat and forest plantations of Eucalyptus globulus and Pinus radiata and stands invaded by Acacia spp. Only 9% corresponded to low-contrast edges (< 0.5) with natural forests. The highest ECON corresponded to patches both invaded by alien species (80-90%) and planted with exotic tree species (60-70%) that were adjacent to the focal habitat patches. Zones of high contrast that were dissecting the focal habitat patches were prioritized for restoration. The correlation length increased from 1,822 to 2,211 m for the current and the restoration scenario, respectively. Landscape planning should strive to reduce edges between suitable and unsuitable habitats, taking into account edge sensitivity of forest-dependent species and the spread of invasive species.

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“…In contrast, landscape contrast has been considered as a crucial factor for assessing habitat pattern across different scales (Biswas andWagner 2012, Schindler et al 2008). Edge contrast affected the magnitude of edge effects, with a tendency for stronger responses to old and tall plantations (hard edges) than to young and short plantations (soft edges) (Reino et al 2009). For example, in the form of passive dispersal, seeds will accumulate on the forest boundary as plants dispersed by wind; or the "terrain barriers" can act as obstacles for the movement of certain species.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An integrated approach for landscape contrast analysis with particular consideration of small habitats and ecotones

Hou¹,

Walz²

2016

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Citation: Hou W, Walz U (2016) An integrated approach for landscape contrast analysis with particular consideration of small habitats and ecotones. Nature Conservation 14: 25-39. doi: 10.3897/natureconservation.14.7010 AbstractHabitat diversity is considered as an expression of biodiversity at landscape level in addition to genetic and species diversity. Thus, effective methods for measuring habitat pattern at landscape level are crucial for understanding the ecological processes. In this paper we propose to extend the commonly used model Patch Corridor Matrix Model (PCMM) for spatial pattern analysis. Originally, this model assumes discrete structures within the landscape without explicit consideration of "gradients" between patches. The gradients, often called "ecotones", can be considered as "soft edges" which have a profound influence on adjacent ecosystems. Another part of information that has often been ignored are "small habitats" inside patches (e.g. hedgerows, tree rows, copse, and scattered trees), which leads to within-patch heterogeneity being underestimated. In this paper, the concept of landscape contrast is used to integrate the discrete and gradient landscape representations by incorporating small habitats and ecotones in methods to measure landscape heterogeneity. A height gradient is used to define the ecotones between forest and field. Then, patch contrast (i.e. Edge Contrast Index (ECON)) is calculated based on the height difference between adjacent vegetation patches. Artificial elements (e.g. traffic roads) are considered as barriers which are assigned with the highest edge contrast value. At the landscape level, a metric called Area-Weighted Edge Contrast (AWEC) is introduced to describe the landscape structure. The edge effects of ecotones, small habitats, and traffic roads are incorporated in the calculation of AWEC. Our test examples show that incorporation of ecotones and small habitats can smooth "edge effects" among patches and result in a more realistic quantification of habitat contrast. The contrast concept is especially useful in a vegetated landscape with less human impact. It could be understood as an additional interpretation to fragmentation of habitats with permeable edges among them. Consequently, this presented approach may enhance the understanding of the relationship between landscape pattern and process.

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Distance to edges, edge contrast and landscape fragmentation: Interactions affecting farmland birds around forest plantations

Abstract: Clustering forest plantations in a few large patches and thus reducing the density of wooded edges at the landscape-scale might reduce such negative impacts.

Cited by 145 publications

References 44 publications

Can birds play a role as High Nature Value indicators of montado system?

Can birds play a role as High Nature Value indicators of montado system?

Habitat Edge Contrast as an Indicator to Prioritize Sites for Ecological Restoration at the Landscape Scale

An integrated approach for landscape contrast analysis with particular consideration of small habitats and ecotones

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