The relationships between habitat suitability, population size and body condition in a pond-breeding amphibian

Unglaub, Bianca; Steinfartz, Sebastian; Kühne, Daniela; Haas, Alexander; Schmidt, Benedikt R.

doi:10.1016/j.baae.2018.01.002

Cited by 28 publications

(35 citation statements)

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“…mean of HSI) for each species. However, according to Unglaub et al 85 , there is no obvious positive relationship between habitat suitability and performance of populations in T. cristatus. Thus, it would be interesting to couple our analyses with local scale population dynamic models or mechanistic models in order to refine our understanding of the relevance of the patches for newt populations.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Habitat patches for newts in the face of climate change: local scale assessment combining niche modelling and graph theory

Préau

Grandjean

Sellier³

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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& francis isselin-nondedeu 3,6Triturus cristatus and Triturus marmoratus are two protected and declining newts occurring in the administrative department of Vienne, in France. They have limited dispersal abilities and rely on the connectivity between habitats and their suitability. In a warming climate, the locations of suitable habitats are expected to change, as is the connectivity. Here, we wondered how climate change might affect shifts in habitat suitability and connectivity of habitat patches, as connectivity is a key element enabling species to realize a potential range shift. We used ecological niche modelling (ENM), combining large-scale climate suitability with local scale, high-resolution habitat features, to identify suitable areas for the two species, under low and high warming scenarios (RCP 2.6 and RCP 8.5). We associated it with connectivity assessment through graph theory. The variable 'small ponds' contributed most to land cover-only ENMs for both species. Projections with climate change scenarios revealed a potential impact of warming on suitable habitat patches for newts, especially for T. cristatus. We observed a decrease in connectivity following a decrease in patch suitability. Our results highlight the important areas for newt habitat connectivity within the study area, and define those potentially threatened by climate warming. We provide information for prioritizing sites for acquisition, protection or restoration, and to advise landscape policies. Our framework is a useful and easily reproducible way to combine global climate requirements of the species with detailed information on species habitats and occurrence when available. open Scientific RepoRtS | (2020) 10:3570 | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-60479-4www.nature.com/scientificreports www.nature.com/scientificreports/ connected by "edges", which refer to ecological corridors. Landscape graphs can be used to represent ecological networks and to analyse connectivity between habitats, with, for instance, the purpose of prioritizing sites for protection, improving connectivity, or assessing potential effect of an urban development project 19,20 . In this approach, the landscape between habitat patches is represented by a "resistance" or "cost" which estimates the relationships between environmental variables and movement of the considered species 21 . Resistance surfaces can be categorical, with a cost associated with land cover types 22 ; continuous, for example from an output of ENM, where resistance increases when habitat suitability decreases 23,24 ; or binary, assuming that the influence of the matrix on species movement is homogenous between patches 25 . Ziółkowska et al. 26 have compared the efficiency of such resistance surface representation on landscape connectivity assessment and they recommend using continuous resistance surface whenever possible. Using a habitat suitability map from ENM helps to overcome a lack of sufficient data. The use of ENM output is also a way to explore predictions of changes in high habitat su...

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Habitat patches for newts in the face of climate change: local scale assessment combining niche modelling and graph theory

Préau

Grandjean

Sellier³

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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“…Hartel et al 2010;Visser et al 2016). Initially due to its status as a European protected species (listed in Annexes II and IV of the EU Natural Habitats Council Directive 92/43/EEC), T. cristatus has in the twenty-first century developed into a high-profile species for the use of translocation and habitat mitigation in species conservation (Edgar et al 2005;Lewis et al 2017;Matos et al 2017), the use of habitat descriptors to predict occurrence and abundance in a management context (Unglaub et al 2015(Unglaub et al , 2018Miró et al 2017;O'Brien et al 2017), and the development of detection methods and associated analytical frameworks for large-scale monitoring (Biggs et al 2015;Griffiths et al 2015;Buxton et al 2017;Harper et al 2018). However, despite a disproportionate attention from conservation practitioners, T. cristatus continues to decline across most of its range (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Age and growth in a European flagship amphibian: equal performance at agricultural ponds and favourably managed aquatic sites

2019

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In human-modified landscapes, little is known about the influence of aquatic habitat types on the demographic structure of residing amphibian populations. In the present paper, we focus on a European flagship urodele species (the great crested newt Triturus cristatus) at the northwestern range of its distribution, applying the method of skeletochronology to compare the ages of individuals retrieved from agricultural ponds with individuals retrieved from aquatic sites favourably managed for T. cristatus presence. Median ages ranged between 4.5 and 10.0 years depending on sex and population, and did not differ between the two site categories. Females were on average older than males at both agricultural ponds as well as favourably managed sites. Median ages at sexual maturity (3 years for females and 2 years for males) were 4 years below the most commonly observed age cohort in both sexes, suggesting that young adults regularly forgo reproduction. Mean body size did not differ between agricultural ponds and favourably managed sites. However, the former were characterised by a higher variance in body size, which is possibly linked to more unstable ecological conditions in agricultural settings. Taken together, our findings confirm that under suitable conditions agricultural ponds can harbour sustainable populations, an important finding for the broad-scale conservation management of T. cristatus which does not usually take population demographies into account.

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“…Water reservoirs, wetlands and river valleys are habitats for numerous valuable natural species of flora and fauna. Aquatic ecosystems affect the microclimate, delay the flow of surface water, supply groundwater and contribute to the improvement of water quality [1][2][3].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Areas with low natural value can be developed as a potential investment. Amphibians are very sensitive bio-indicators of the environment [1], and among the phyla of vertebrates [2][3][4][5][6][7] they are most threatened by extinction. Amphibians are closely dependent on water reservoirs where they breed.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Predicting Presence of Amphibian Species Using Features Obtained from GIS and Satellite Images

Blachnik

Sołtysiak

Dąbrowska

2019

IJGI

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The construction of transport infrastructure is often preceded by an environmentalimpact assessment procedure, which should identify amphibian breeding sites and migrationroutes. However, the assessment is very difficult to conduct because of the large number ofhabitats spread out over a vast expanse, and the limited amount of time available for fieldwork.We propose utilizing local environmental variables that can be gathered remotely using only GISsystems and satellite images together with machine learning methods. In this article, we introducesix new and easily extractable types of environmental features. Most of the features we proposecan be easily obtained from satellite imagery and spatial development plans. The proposed featurespace was evaluated using four machine learning algorithms, namely: a C4.5 decision tree,AdaBoost, random forest and gradient-boosted trees. The obtained results indicated that theproposed feature space facilitated prediction and was comparable to other solutions. Moreover,three of the new proposed features are ranked most important; these are the three dominantproperties of the surroundings of water reservoirs. One of the new features is the percentageaccess from the edges of the reservoir to open areas, but it affects only a few species. Furthermore,our research confirmed that the gradient-boosted trees were the best method for the analyzeddataset.

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The relationships between habitat suitability, population size and body condition in a pond-breeding amphibian

Cited by 28 publications

References 50 publications

Habitat patches for newts in the face of climate change: local scale assessment combining niche modelling and graph theory

Habitat patches for newts in the face of climate change: local scale assessment combining niche modelling and graph theory

Age and growth in a European flagship amphibian: equal performance at agricultural ponds and favourably managed aquatic sites

Predicting Presence of Amphibian Species Using Features Obtained from GIS and Satellite Images

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