A resource-based modelling framework to assess habitat sustability for steppe birds in semiarid Mediterranean agricultural systems
Cardador, Laura (Centre Tecnològic Forestal de Catalunya)
Cáceres Ainsa, Miquel de (Centre de Recerca Ecològica i d'Aplicacions Forestals)
Bota, Gerard (Centre Tecnològic Forestal de Catalunya)
Giralt, David (Centre Tecnològic Forestal de Catalunya)
Casas, Fabián (Estación Experimental de Zonas Áridas)
Arroyo, Beatriz (Instituto de Investigación en Recursos Citogenéticos)
Mougeot, Fraçois (Estación Experimental de Zonas Áridas)
Cantero Martínez, Carlos (Universitat de Lleida. Departament de Producció Vegetal i Ciència Forestal)
Moncunill, Judit (Universitat de Lleida. Departament de Producció Vegetal i Ciència Forestal)
Butler, Simon J. (University of East Anglia. School of Biological Sciences)

Date:	2014
Abstract:	European agriculture is undergoing widespread changes that are likely to have profound impacts on farmland biodiversity. The development of tools that allow an assessment of the potential biodiversity effects of different land-use alternatives before changes occur is fundamental to guiding management decisions. In this study, we develop a resource-based model framework to estimate habitat suitability for target species, according to simple information on species' key resource requirements (diet, foraging habitat and nesting site), and examine whether it can be used to link land-use and local species' distribution. We take as a study case four steppe bird species in a lowland area of the north-eastern Iberian Peninsula. We also compare the performance of our resource-based approach to that obtained through habitat-based models relating species' occurrence and land-cover variables. Further, we use our resource-based approach to predict the effects that change in farming systems can have on farmland bird habitat suitability and compare these predictions with those obtained using the habitat-based models. Habitat suitability estimates generated by our resource-based models performed similarly (and better for one study species) than habitat based-models when predicting current species distribution. Moderate prediction success was achieved for three out of four species considered by resource-based models and for two of four by habitat-based models. Although, there is potential for improving the performance of resource-based models, they provide a structure for using available knowledge of the functional links between agricultural practices, provision of key resources and the response of organisms to predict potential effects of changing land-uses in a variety of context or the impacts of changes such as altered management practices that are not easily incorporated into habitat-based models.
Rights:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Subject:	Mediterranean ; Birds ; Agricultural systems ; Biodiversity
Published in:	PloS one, Vol. 9, Issue 3 (March 2014) , p. e92790, ISSN 1932-6203

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0092790
PMID: 24667825

14 p, 1.1 MB

The record appears in these collections:
Research literature > UAB research groups literature > Research Centres and Groups (research output) > Experimental sciences > CREAF (Centre de Recerca Ecològica i d'Aplicacions Forestals)
Articles > Research articles
Articles > Published articles