Mind the gap: Effects of canopy clearings on temperate forest bat assemblages

Tena, Elena; Paz, Óscar de; Peña, Roberto de la; Fandós, Guillermo; Redondo, M. Soledad; Tellería, José Luis

doi:10.1016/j.foreco.2020.118341

Cited by 19 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…Gaps in forest canopies play a major role in local species richness because they increase habitat heterogeneity and accelerate the development of more complex forests ( Swartz et al, 2020 ; Tena et al, 2020 ). In this study, the significant increase in species richness of the shrub layer in the forest gap may be because sufficient sunlight in the gap can cause more plants to grow under the forest ( Wang et al, 2019b ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The formation of forest gaps changes the forest structure and microenvironmental conditions (light, temperature, relative humidity, etc. ), so the gap affects heat transfer at different positions in the gap through changes in thermal characteristics ( Gutiérrez del Arroyo & Silver, 2018 ; Tena et al, 2020 ). It can further affect the physical and chemical properties of soil, the decomposition of organic matter and the activity of soil microorganisms.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Response of plant diversity and soil physicochemical properties to different gap sizes in a Pinus massoniana plantation

Lyu

Liu

et al. 2021

PeerJ

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As one means of close-to-nature management, forest gaps have an important impact on the ecological service function of plantations. To improve the current situation of P. massoniana plantations, three different sizes of forest gaps (large gaps, medium gaps and small gaps) were established to observe whether gap setting can improve the soil fertility and plant diversity of forest plantations. The results showed that compared with the control, the soil organic matter content of different soil layers increased significantly in the medium forest gap and large forest gap. The content of soil organic matter in the surface layer of the middle gap had the largest increase (80.64%). Compared with the control, the content of soil-available potassium between different soil layers decreased significantly by 15.93% to 25.80%. The soil hydrolysable nitrogen reached its maximum under the medium gap. Soil moisture showed significant changes among different gap treatments, different soil layers and their interaction, decreasing significantly in large gaps and small gaps but increasing significantly in medium gaps. The soil bulk density decreased significantly compared with the control, and the surface soil reached the minimum in the medium gap. There were different plant species in forest gaps of different sizes, and shrub layer plants were more sensitive to gap size differences than herb layer plants. The plant diversity indices of the shrub layer increased significantly and showed a maximum under the medium gap. The plant diversity of the herb layer showed the opposite trend, and the Shannon-Wiener index, Simpson index and Pielou index were significantly lower than those of the control. RDA showed that different gap treatments had significant effects on the distribution of plants under the forest. Soil available potassium, soil moisture and soil bulk density affected the distribution and diversity of plants under the forest, serving as the limiting factors of plant growth. In forest management, if we strictly consider the improvement of plant diversity and soil physicochemical properties, these results suggest that a medium gap should be established in a plantation for natural restoration.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Response of plant diversity and soil physicochemical properties to different gap sizes in a Pinus massoniana plantation

Lyu

Liu

et al. 2021

PeerJ

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“…These changes in the distribution of woodlands and some potential prey species could affect the distribution of the most suitable foraging areas for bats, which could expand to the highest elevations and retreat in the piedmont. These trends could also be affected by the ongoing process of forest regeneration and shrub expansion typical of central Spain and other Mediterranean areas (Kuemmerle et al ., 2016; Morales‐Molino et al ., 2017), which have benefited populations of other forest species (e.g., birds; Tellería, 2019) but can eventually suffocate biodiversity through the pervasive effect of extreme shrub encroachment and tree densification (Regos et al ., 2016; Tena et al ., 2020b). However, since all of these potential changes will occur within a protected area network, it seems important to carry out conservation programs to anticipate and mitigate the potential effects of changes on bat assemblages.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modelling the distribution of bat activity areas for conservation in a Mediterranean mountain range

Tena

Tellería

2021

Animal Conservation

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There is a lack of studies designed to detect the most important areas for bat conservation. In this context, areas of high bat activity have been rarely considered in the delimitation of protected areas for bats, which are generally focused on the protection of roosting sites. This has been due to the difficulties of sampling the distribution of these nocturnal animals when moving at night. This methodological constraint has been overcome by the development of bioacoustic sampling, which allows mapping the occurrence of active bats over large areas. In this study, we use bat detectors to sample the distribution of bat activity in central Spain. This region is under the environmental effects of a mountain range (Guadarrama Mountains) and the urban encroachment of the city of Madrid. The occurrences provided by the detectors were used to produce species distribution models of which the resulting layers were arranged to detect the most suitable areas for bat richness and rarity indices. We performed a gap analysis to explore whether the areas most commonly used by active bats are covered by the current network of protected areas. The results showed that the best areas of high bat activity are located at the piedmont of the mountains and that most of these areas overlap with the existing network of protected areas. The best areas for bats excluded the most urbanized areas and within a similar urban gradient, protected areas tended to be located within the best sites for conservation. These results suggest that bats currently benefit from a network of protected areas initially aimed to protect birds and habitats (Natura 2000). In addition, monitoring areas of high bat activity could complement roosting site protection in the conservation of bat assemblages.

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“…The environmental heterogeneity of forest gaps plays a major role in increasing plant diversity (Swartz et al, 2020). The proportion of incident sunlight under the forest canopy and the exposed area of the woodland increases following the formation of forest gaps, which directly affect species composition and community structure of the understory vegetation (Hubbell et al, 1999;Tena et al, 2020). Some studies demonstrated that the herb layer is more sensitive to environmental changes than the tree and shrub layers and is more likely to reflect the effect of the transformation within a short period of time (Graf et al, 2019;Abbas et al, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Forest gaps alter the soil bacterial community of weeping cypress plantations by modulating the understory plant diversity

Lyu

Luo²,

Liu³

et al. 2022

Front. Plant Sci.

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Weeping cypress is an endemic tree species that is widely planted in China, and the simple stand structure and fragile ecosystem of its plantation are common issues. Exploring the effect of different gap sizes on the soil bacterial community structure of weeping cypress plantations can provide a theoretical basis for the near-natural management of forest plantations. We, therefore, constructed three kinds of forest gaps with different sizes in weeping cypress plantations, namely, small (50–100 m2), medium (100–200 m2), and large gaps (400–667 m2), for identifying the key factors that affect soil bacterial communities following the construction of forest gaps. The results suggested that the herb layer was more sensitive than the shrub layer, while the Simpson, Shannon, and richness indices of the herb layer in plots with gaps were significantly higher than those of designated sampling plots without any gaps (CK). The presence of large gaps significantly increased the understory plant diversity and the Shannon and Simpson indices of the soil bacterial alpha diversity. There were obvious changes in the community composition of soil bacteria following the construction of forest gaps. The dominant bacterial phyla, orders, and functions were similar across the plots with different gap sizes. Of the indicator bacterial species, the abundance of the nitrogen-fixing bacteria, Lysobacter_ yangpyeongensis, and Ensifer_meliloti, was significantly different across plots with different gap sizes and accounted for a large proportion of the bacterial population of plots with medium and large gaps. The understory plant diversity was mostly related to the soil bacterial community than to other soil factors. The results of structural equation modeling indicated that the understory plant diversity was the most important environmental factor in driving the composition and diversity of bacterial communities. The construction of forest gaps significantly improved the understory plant diversity, physicochemical properties of the soil, and bacterial diversity in weeping cypress plantations, and the results of the comprehensive evaluation were in the order: large gaps > small gaps > medium gaps > CK. Our results suggested that large gaps are beneficial for the diversity of above-ground plant communities and underground soil bacterial communities.

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Mind the gap: Effects of canopy clearings on temperate forest bat assemblages

Cited by 19 publications

References 21 publications

Response of plant diversity and soil physicochemical properties to different gap sizes in a Pinus massoniana plantation

Response of plant diversity and soil physicochemical properties to different gap sizes in a Pinus massoniana plantation

Modelling the distribution of bat activity areas for conservation in a Mediterranean mountain range

Forest gaps alter the soil bacterial community of weeping cypress plantations by modulating the understory plant diversity

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