Abstract:Natural disturbances such as wildfires, storms and insect outbreaks shape the ecological and evolutionary dynamics of terrestrial ecosystems around the world (Pausas & Keeley, 2014). As a result, ecosystems are generally resistant-able to avoid disturbance impacts-and resilient-able to recover after disturbance-under the local disturbance regime (Johnstone et al., 2016;Nimmo et al., 2015).However, disturbance regimes are changing around the world, as disturbances are becoming more frequent, widespread and inte… Show more
“…No universal consensus is available concerning how SL affects the regeneration of woody plants after the fire, as its possible impacts depend on local characteristics and species [69]. For example, SL may benefit open-habitat species [70,71].…”
Section: Sl Implications Of Salvage Logging In the Pine Plantationmentioning
At the landscape scale, the Mediterranean region is a mosaic of habitats occupied by plants and animals with different resilience to fire. One of these habitats, the pine plantation, is characterized by its structural simplification and susceptibility to fire. Despite its high flammability, few studies have compared the response of animal communities between pine plantations and other autochthonous woodlands. For five years after a large fire in southwestern Europe, we surveyed reptiles in two natural habitats (oak forest, scrubland) and a pine plantation managed with salvage logging, a post-fire practice which consists of the complete harvesting and removal of death burnt trees. Reptile abundance and species composition were examined to assess differences in the reptile community between these habitats. Differences between burnt and unburnt transects were limited to the first year after the fire, while, over the entire five-year period, differences in species composition and abundance were due to vegetation type instead of fire. The pine logged area showed a delay in the recovery of vegetation and also in the appearance of many reptile species after the fire. At the reptile species level, we found evidence of both positive responses to fire (for lizards with high heliothermic activity) and negative ones (for specialist snake species). Overall, our results confirm the resilience of the reptile community to fire. The mosaic of habitats in the Mediterranean region and the openness caused by fire can increase the reptile biodiversity (landscape- plus pyro-diversity effects), but some practices such as salvage logging coupled with fire regime shifts (larger and more frequent fires) can compromise the conservation of the biodiversity in fire-prone regions.
“…No universal consensus is available concerning how SL affects the regeneration of woody plants after the fire, as its possible impacts depend on local characteristics and species [69]. For example, SL may benefit open-habitat species [70,71].…”
Section: Sl Implications Of Salvage Logging In the Pine Plantationmentioning
At the landscape scale, the Mediterranean region is a mosaic of habitats occupied by plants and animals with different resilience to fire. One of these habitats, the pine plantation, is characterized by its structural simplification and susceptibility to fire. Despite its high flammability, few studies have compared the response of animal communities between pine plantations and other autochthonous woodlands. For five years after a large fire in southwestern Europe, we surveyed reptiles in two natural habitats (oak forest, scrubland) and a pine plantation managed with salvage logging, a post-fire practice which consists of the complete harvesting and removal of death burnt trees. Reptile abundance and species composition were examined to assess differences in the reptile community between these habitats. Differences between burnt and unburnt transects were limited to the first year after the fire, while, over the entire five-year period, differences in species composition and abundance were due to vegetation type instead of fire. The pine logged area showed a delay in the recovery of vegetation and also in the appearance of many reptile species after the fire. At the reptile species level, we found evidence of both positive responses to fire (for lizards with high heliothermic activity) and negative ones (for specialist snake species). Overall, our results confirm the resilience of the reptile community to fire. The mosaic of habitats in the Mediterranean region and the openness caused by fire can increase the reptile biodiversity (landscape- plus pyro-diversity effects), but some practices such as salvage logging coupled with fire regime shifts (larger and more frequent fires) can compromise the conservation of the biodiversity in fire-prone regions.
“…Species’ traits will also be explored as covariates, including mean seed mass measured from each lot and potentially other species-level traits obtained from databases such as BIEN or LEDA. The model will include site as a random effect, as well as the phylogenetic relatedness among species [e.g., [ 16 ]], which will be built with the V.PhyloMaker R package [ 17 ].…”
The choice of revegetating via direct seeding or planting nursery-grown seedlings influences the potential stresses suffered by seedlings such as herbivory and drought. The outcome of the balance between both revegetation methods may ultimately depend on how species identity and traits such as seed and seedling size interact with environmental conditions. To test this, we will conduct a continental-scale experiment consisting of one mini-experiment replicated by multiple participants across Europe. Each participant will establish a site with seeded and planted individuals of one or more native, locally growing oak (Quercus) species; the selection of this genus aims to favour continental-scale participation and to allow testing the response of a widely distributed genus of broad ecological and economic relevance. At each site, participants will follow the present protocol for seed collection, seeding in the field, nursery cultivation, outplanting, protection against herbivores, site maintenance, and measurement of seedling performance and environmental variables. Each measurement on each species at each site will produce one effect size; the data will be analysed through mixed-effects meta-analysis. With this approach we will assess the main effect of revegetation method, species, plant functional traits, and the potential effect of site-specific effect moderators. Overall, we will provide a continental-scale estimate on the seeding vs. planting dilemma and analyse to what extent the differences in environmental conditions across sites, seed size, functional traits, and the phylogenetic relatedness of species can account for the differences in the effect of revegetation method on seedling performance across study sites and species.
“…Webster et al (2021) show how following extreme rainfall events the resistance to changes in biomass and leaf density of seagrass populations, and the recovery to pre-disturbance historical values, depends on the salinity levels to which these have been exposed previously. Leverkus et al (2020) use a meta-analysis approach to highlight how local environmental factors also play a key role in the resilience of trees to logging. Also, Ovenden et al (2021) report a high sensitivity of different metrics of forest resilience to the period of time considered as baseline, which calls into caution the need for a clear definition of the stable state of the system under examination.…”
Section: Understand Resilience Under Different Disturbance Regimesmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Leverkus et al. (2020) use a meta‐analysis approach to highlight how local environmental factors also play a key role in the resilience of trees to logging. Also, Ovenden et al.…”
Section: Opportunities and Challenges In The Special Featurementioning
Resilience has emerged as a key concept in ecology and conservation biology to understand and predict ecosystem responses to global change. In its broadest sense, resilience describes the ability of an ecosystem to resist, and recover from, a disturbance. However, the application of such a concept in different subdisciplines of ecology and in different study systems has resulted in a wide disparity of definitions and ways of quantifying resilience.
This Special Feature, which spans the Journal of Ecology, Journal of Animal Ecology and Functional Ecology, provides an overview of how ecologists define, quantify, compare and predict resilience across different study systems.
The 29 contributions to this Special Feature show the broad range of approaches used by ecologists to study resilience. Almost half of the contributions (48%) study resilience at the community level, with a 30% of them studying resilience at multiple levels of biological organisation. A large proportion of these articles are observational (42%), experimental (14%) or a combination of both (17%) while a 17% utilise theoretical or computational approaches. Although 38%, 21% and 14% of the studies were based solely on plants, animals or micro‐organisms, respectively, 17% of them incorporated these multiple trophic levels.
Synthesis. A unified ecological understanding of resilience across systems and taxa requires a trans‐disciplinary consensus on what resilience actually is and how to best measure it. Here, we provide an overview of how ecologists define, quantify, compare and predict resilience across different ecological systems and subdisciplines, with reference to the diverse approaches used by contributions to this Special Feature. We identify four key recommendations to harmonise future efforts in resilience research: (a) define resilience using existing theoretical frameworks; (b) use common and comparable metrics to measure resilience; (c) clearly contextualise and define the pre‐ and post‐disturbance state of the ecological system and (d) consider explicitly the disturbance type and regime impacting the system.
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