The impact of forest ski-pistes on diversity of ground-dwelling arthropods and small mammals in the Alps

Abstract

Forest clearing for winter sport activities is the major force driving loss and fragmentation of the alpine forests. The establishment of ski-pistes involves impacts on every ecosystem component. To assess the extent of this threat we studied ground-dwelling arthropods (namely ground beetles and spiders) and small mammals (shrews and voles) at two ski resorts in north-western Italian Alps by pitfall trapping. Diversity parameters (mean abundance, species richness and Shannon index) of spiders and macropterous carabids increased from forest interior to open habitats (i.e., ski-piste or pasture), whereas parameters of brachypterous carabids significantly decreased from forest interior to open habitats. Diversity parameters of macropterous ground beetles were higher on pastures than on ski-pistes. Small mammals were virtually absent from ski-pistes. Observed frequencies in the three adjacent habitats were significantly different from expected ones for the bank vole Myodes glareolus and the pygmy shrew Sorex minutus. Generalized linear models showed that abundance, species richness and diversity of spiders and macropterous carabids of ski-pistes were best modelled by combination of factors, including grass cover and width of the ski-piste. Indicator Species Analysis showed that species that significantly preferred ski-pistes were less than those preferring pastures, and species which were exclusive of ski-pistes were very few. To retain arthropod ground-dwelling fauna of open habitats environmentally friendly ways of constructing pistes should be developed. After tree clearing, only the roughest ground surfaces should be levelled, in order to preserve as much natural vegetation as possible. Where necessary, ski-pistes should be restored through the recovery of local vegetation.

Effect of the colour of pitfall traps on their capture efficiency of carabid beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae), spiders (Araneae) and other arthropods

“…Finch et al, 2007;Sroka & Finch, 2006) in others glass jars (transparent) (e.g. Lövei et al, 2006;Magura et al, 2001;Negro et al, 2009;Sadler et al, 2006). The colour of a pitfall trap could be important in the context of species protection, animal welfare and ethical considerations in science, as it is important to reduce unintentional by-catches (Putman, 1995;New, 1999).…”

Effects of forest management on ground beetle diversity in alpine beech ( Fagus sylvatica L.) stands

“…Annex 1 of the "Habitats Directive" (92/43/EEC) lists eight habitat types characterized by beech forests as worthy of conservation. Current threats to beech forest ecosystems include climate change (Gessler et al, 2007;Di Filippo et al, 2012), increased likelihood of drought and fire damage (Piovesan et al, 2008;Ascoli et al, 2013), impact of tourism (Negro et al, 2009;Rolando et al, 2013), habitat loss and fragmentation (Kunstler et al, 2007), grazing by domestic or wild ungulates (Vandenberghe et al, 2007;Olesen and Madsen, 2008) and changes in forest management (Mund and Schulze, 2006;Wagner et al, 2011).…”

“…Most of the studies of carabid diversity in forest habitats have focused on the effects of habitat fragmentation (Davies and Margules, 1998;Niemelä, 2001;Koivula and Vermeulen, 2005), edge effects (Heliölä et al, 2001;Koivula et al, 2004;Negro et al, 2009), or forestry practices (Werner and Raffa, 2000;Pearce and Venier, 2006;Taboada et al, 2006). The latter affect particularly large-sized and brachypterous (short or reduced wings) habitat specialists, which have limited dispersal capacity (Kotze and O'Hara, 2003).…”

Differential responses of ground dwelling arthropods to ski-piste restoration by hydroseeding

“…The ground beetle assemblages could have been composed of species with contrasting ecological requirements so that ecological patterns could not be appropriately revealed (Negro et al 2009(Negro et al , 2010. Accordingly, the carabids were divided into three ecological groups on the basis of their wing morphology: macropterous (full-sized wings), brachypterous (reduced wings or wingless) and wing-dimorphic (species with both winged and short-winged individuals).…”

“…Studies on the impact of ski-pistes have mostly been concentrated on soils (Freppaz et al 2002;Gros et al 2004;Pintar et al 2009 ), and on vegetation (Delarze 1994;Van Ommeren 2001;Wipf et al 2005), or, more rarely, on the combination of soil and vegetation (Barni et al 2007;Pohl et al 2009;Martin et al 2010;RouxFouillet et al 2011). The studies conducted on animals have not considered soil, and have only taken into account vegetation marginally (Laiolo and Rolando 2005;Rolando et al 2007;Caprio et al 2011;Negro et al 2009Negro et al , 2010Negro et al , 2013Rolando et al 2013). In this study, all three components of alpine ecosystems have been considered together for the first time.…”