Integrating landscape ecology and the assessment of ecosystem services in the study of karst areas

Canedoli, Claudia; Ficetola, Gentile Francesco; Corengia, Davide; Tognini, Paola; Ferrario, Andrea; Padoa‐Schioppa, Emilio

doi:10.1007/s10980-021-01351-2

Cited by 33 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 107 publications

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“…Importantly, most of these subterranean sites are protected simply because they occur within a protected area established for surface species or ecosystems. Given that surface‐focused protected areas are rarely designed to account for the vertical dimension of subterranean ecosystems (Linke et al ., 2019; Sánchez‐Fernández et al ., 2021), including soils (Guerra et al ., 2020), it is important to understand and test the extent to which protected areas on the surface benefit the ecosystems underneath (Canedoli et al ., 2022).…”

Section: Current Knowledge and Research Trajectories For Conservation...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards evidence‐based conservation of subterranean ecosystems

et al. 2022

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Subterranean ecosystems are among the most widespread environments on Earth, yet we still have poor knowledge of their biodiversity. To raise awareness of subterranean ecosystems, the essential services they provide, and their unique conservation challenges, 2021 and 2022 were designated International Years of Caves and Karst. As these ecosystems have traditionally been overlooked in global conservation agendas and multilateral agreements, a quantitative assessment of solution-based approaches to safeguard subterranean biota and associated habitats is timely. This assessment allows researchers and practitioners to understand the progress made and research needs in subterranean ecology and management. We conducted a systematic review of peer-reviewed and grey literature focused on subterranean ecosystems globally (terrestrial, freshwater, and saltwater systems), to quantify the available evidence-base for the effectiveness of conservation interventions. We selected 708 publications from the years 1964 to 2021 that discussed, recommended, or implemented 1,954 conservation interventions in subterranean ecosystems. We noted a steep increase in the number of studies from the 2000s while, surprisingly, the proportion of studies quantifying the impact of conservation interventions has steadily and significantly decreased in recent years. The effectiveness of 31% of conservation interventions has been tested statistically. We further highlight that 64% of the reported research occurred in the Palearctic and Nearctic biogeographic regions. Assessments of the effectiveness of conservation interventions were heavily biased towards indirect measures (monitoring and risk assessment), a limited sample of organisms (mostly arthropods and bats), and more accessible systems (terrestrial caves). Our results indicate that most conservation science in the field of subterranean biology does not apply a rigorous quantitative approach, resulting in sparse evidence for the effectiveness of interventions. This raises the important question of how to make conservation efforts more feasible to implement, cost-effective, and long-lasting. Although there is no single remedy, we propose a suite of potential solutions to focus our efforts better towards increasing statistical testing and stress the importance of standardising study reporting to facilitate metaanalytical exercises. We also provide a database summarising the available literature, which will help to build quantitative knowledge about interventions likely to yield the greatest impacts depending upon the subterranean species and habitats of interest. We view this as a starting point to shift away from the widespread tendency of recommending conservation interventions based on anecdotal and expert-based information rather than scientific evidence, without quantitatively testing their effectiveness.

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Section: Current Knowledge and Research Trajectories For Conservation...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards evidence‐based conservation of subterranean ecosystems

et al. 2022

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“…Despite the close human dependence on karst, conservation policies are ineffective on a landscape scale. As karst systems are intrinsically fragile environments with high connectivity among their elements, they would benefit from a landscape protection approach that goes beyond the conservation of single caves or single cave species [ 63 ]. Karst is one of the most distinguished landscapes in the world.…”

Section: Main Progress and Landmark Achievementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Progress on the Integrity Protection in the Natural World Heritage Site and Agroforestry Development in the Buffer Zone: An Implications for the World Heritage Karst

Chen

Xiong

Zhang

2022

IJERPH

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In the face of increasing development pressure, how to fulfill the obligations under the World Cultural and Natural Heritage Convention and maintain the integrity of the Natural World Heritage Site (NWHS) is a major problem to be solved at present. Agroforestry (AF) development in the buffer zone maintains the integrity of NWHS and promotes sustainable ecological and economic development in the buffer zone. Still, few studies on the knowledge system of integrity protection of NWHS and AF development in the buffer zone research have been conducted. To fill this gap, this study conducts a systematic literature review based on 128 related articles retrieved from the Web of Science (WoS) database and the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) database. Firstly, quantitative studies were conducted to analyze the annual numbers, content and study regions of the published literature. Secondly, the main research progress and achievements of integrity protection of WNHS and AF development in the buffer zone are classified and summarized. On this basis, this paper proposed key scientific issues that remain to be addressed in future, as well as exploring the implications for the World Heritage (WH) karst. This study is a scientific reference for the balanced development of NWHS integrity protection and AF in the buffer zone.

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“…These index including (Table 1): total area of patches (TA), number of patches (NP), patch density (PD), largest patch index (LPI), total edge (TE), average edge density (ED), landscape shape index (LSI), perimeter-area fractal dimension (PAFRAC), contagion (CONTAG), splitting index (SPLIT), patch richness (PR), patch richness density (PRD), Shannon's diversity index (SHDI), Shannon's evenness index (SHEI), and aggregation index (AI), etc. [52][53][54][55].…”

Section: Long-term Wetland Reconstruction Analysis Processmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evolution of Ecological Patterns of Poyang Lake Wetland Landscape over the Last One Hundred Years Based on Historical Topographic Maps and Landsat Images

Wan

2022

Sustainability

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Ecological pattern evolution of Poyang Lake wetland, the largest freshwater lake in China, is critical for regional ecological protection and sustainable development of migratory bird habitats; however, this information is still not fully explored. In this study, we quantitatively reconstructed the spatial distribution and landscape ecological pattern of Poyang Lake wetlands in three periods in the past 100 years based on the military topographic map in the 1930s and the Landsat satellite remote sensing image data in 1979 and 2021. Further, use the Fragstats software to analyze the ecological pattern index of wetland reconstruction results. The results show that the wetland area in the Poyang Lake region has experienced a continuous reduction process over the past 100 years, and it decreased from 3857 km2 in the 1930s to 3673 km2 in the 1970s, and then to 3624 km2 in the 2020s. The current wetland area has decreased by about 6.04% compared with the 1930s. The general trend of changes in the spatial pattern of Poyang Lake wetlands is that the surface water decreases and the open land increases. Nevertheless, the trend has certain spatial differences as a large area of wetlands disappeared in the southwest and west of Poyang Lake and the areas with enlarged wetland density values mainly appeared in the northeastern and northern parts of the study area. The NP (number of patches) in the wetlands of Poyang Lake over the past 100 years showed a downward trend during the 1930s–1970s, and an increasing trend during the 1970s–2010s. Due to the increases of constructed wetlands, the number and density of patches also increased, and PD (patch density) reached a maximum value of 0.142 in 2020s. The LPI (largest patch index) has shown a gradual downward trend in the past 100 years. Compared with the 1930s, the wetlands in 2020s dropped by about 26.64%, and the wetlands further showed a trend of fragmentation. The AI index, which indicates the concentration of wetland patches, reached the maximum value in 2020s, but the LSI (landscape shape index) showed a downward trend in general, indicating that the shape of wetland patches has been simplified over the past 100 years. The research results can provide basic data and decision-making basis for Poyang Lake wetland protection, construction of migratory bird reserve and regional sustainable development.

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Integrating landscape ecology and the assessment of ecosystem services in the study of karst areas

Cited by 33 publications

References 107 publications

Towards evidence‐based conservation of subterranean ecosystems

Towards evidence‐based conservation of subterranean ecosystems

Progress on the Integrity Protection in the Natural World Heritage Site and Agroforestry Development in the Buffer Zone: An Implications for the World Heritage Karst

Evolution of Ecological Patterns of Poyang Lake Wetland Landscape over the Last One Hundred Years Based on Historical Topographic Maps and Landsat Images

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