Wetland Habitat Patches as Ecological Components of Landscape Memory in a Highly Modified Floodplain

Abstract

Landscape memory and ecological memory are relatively new concepts developed independently in geomorphology and ecology. Eco-geomorphology strives to enrich the concept of landscape memory with that of ecological memory, as ecosystems build inherent parts of landscapes and are controlled by geomorphological factors. This integration is illustrated by a small-scale eco-geomorphological case study of links between ecosystems and their hydrogeomorphological template, in the floodplain of a medium size Hungarian River. Despite that the river is channelized by 1835 and most of the study area is under intensive agricultural cultivation, the seminatural vegetation along the various reaches shows significant variations according to geomorphological background variables: detrended correspondence analysis yields results of p = 0.002 significance. Our results prove that geomorphological patterns in floodplains, defined by landscape memory, and the related vegetation patterns, as manifestations of ecological memory, jointly determine the face of floodplain landscapes. The integration of ecological memory into the definition of landscape memory may help meet the challenges of eco-geomorphology and facilitate a holistic understanding of landscapes, and thus be instrumental for reconstructing past environments-both in theory (scientific research) and practice (rehabilitation projects).

Assessing the Relationship Between River Mobility and Habitat

“…Relationships between floodplain ecological structure and geomorphological variables were also studied by Ortmann‐Ajkai et al . () but without measuring river mobility. Despite the increased recognition that river channel mobility provides key ecosystem services, to the best of our knowledge, no study has examined in detail the relationship between mobility and various types of habitat at the watershed scale.…”

Effects of Hydrologic Regime Changes on a Taxonomic and Functional Trait Structure of Earthworm Communities in Mountain Wetlands

“…The observed lack of anecic species and the neutral response of the epigeic, epi-endogeic and endogeic mean trait values to HC changes demonstrates that the thickness of superficial deposits (in our study, maximum 150 cm, after Nicia, personal communication) has an effect on the earthworm community composition at the wetland sites. However, such results also pointed to different components of ecological and landscape memory [ 85 ] influencing population stability and resilience in wetland habitat patches within a river floodplain and in the mountain ecosystems, caused by various links between wetland patches and their hydro-geomorphological template [ 86 ]. The observed contradiction between a set of earthworm traits reacting to changes in intensities of inundation in a river floodplain to those responding to hydrologic changes in groundwater-fed fens in the mountain landscape support the annotation by Lindo [ 87 ] that “traits involved in the response of a species to one environmental stressor may not be relevant in the response to another”.…”

Seasonal evaporation cycle in oxbow lakes formed along the Tisza River in Hungary for flood control

“…However, without additional water supply from precipitation or subsurface infiltration through the permeable layers of the old river beds, shallow lakes can run dry. Input sources of oxbows have not been previously studied in the case of the River Tisza, although an understanding of the water supply of the oxbow lakes is of vital importance to this area due to the ecological (habitats and ecological corridors), economic (fishing), and social (recreation) role of the lakes (Kerényi & Szabó, ; Ortmann‐Ajkai et al, ). For this reason, we examined the stable isotopes of the oxbow lakes and the River Tisza.…”

“…The experience in other controlled floodplains around the world is similar to the Tisza, with flood control affecting many other aspects of the local environment Kerényi & Szabó, 2007;Négrel, Petelet-Giraud, Barbier, & Gautier, 2003;Ortmann-Ajkai, Lóczy, Gyenizse, & Pirkhoffer, 2014;Schindler et al, 2016). A change in the state of an oxbow lake can cause problems over a wider area; therefore, it is important to know the state, water balance, and the factors influencing the quality, and how the relative location affects the water supply.…”