Development of Secondary Woodland in Oak Wood Pastures Reduces the Richness of Rare Epiphytic Lichens
نویسندگان
چکیده
Wooded pastures with ancient trees were formerly abundant throughout Europe, but during the last century, grazing has largely been abandoned often resulting in dense forests. Ancient trees constitute habitat for many declining and threatened species, but the effects of secondary woodland on the biodiversity associated with these trees are largely unknown. We tested for difference in species richness, occurrence, and abundance of a set of nationally and regionally red-listed epiphytic lichens between ancient oaks located in secondary woodland and ancient oaks located in open conditions. We refined the test of the effect of secondary woodland by also including other explanatory variables. Species occurrence and abundance were modelled jointly using overdispersed zero-inflated Poisson models. The richness of the red-listed lichens on ancient oaks in secondary woodland was half of that compared with oaks growing in open conditions. The species-level analyses revealed that this was mainly the result of lower occupancy of two of the study species. The tree-level abundance of one species was also lower in secondary woodland. Potential explanations for this pattern are that the study lichens are adapted to desiccating conditions enhancing their population persistence by low competition or that open, windy conditions enhance their colonisation rate. This means that the development of secondary woodland is a threat to red-listed epiphytic lichens. We therefore suggest that woody vegetation is cleared and grazing resumed in abandoned oak pastures. Importantly, this will also benefit the vitality of the oaks.
منابع مشابه
Livelihood dependency on woodland resources in southern Zagros, Iran
This study aims to investigate the relationships between people?s livelihoods and the woodland resources of the Ganaveh watershed in southern Zagros, Iran, as a basis for suggestions of strategies for sustainable management of the woodland resources and improvement of the livelihoods of people in the community. Household data were collected through interviews with heads of households and member...
متن کاملEffects of Mediterranean dehesa management on epiphytic lichens.
Spanish holm oak (Quercus ilex subsp. ballota) open woodlands (dehesas) maintain a high diversity of plants and animals compared to other forested Mediterranean habits, but little is known about the responses of epiphytic lichens to different management regimes that are applied to this woodland type. The present study was carried out in central-southern Spain and included four management regime...
متن کاملEstimating epiphytic lichen richness by single families in Mediterranean forests
The current trend of declining epiphytic richness caused by human activities (forest fragmentation, logging , agriculture, and livestock grazing) and the greater efforts required to sample and identify the most inconspicuous species have necessitated the use of indicators of the species richness. In this study, we examined the potential of predicting epiphytic lichen richness based on the richn...
متن کاملEffects of tropical montane forest disturbance on epiphytic macrolichens.
The high diversity of epiphytes typical of undisturbed montane tropical forests has been negatively affected by continuous deforestation and forest conversion to secondary vegetation. Macrolichens are an important component of these epiphytes. Because their physiology is strongly coupled to humidity and solar radiation, we hypothesized that microclimatic changes derived from forest clearing and...
متن کاملEpiphytes in wooded pastures: Isolation matters for lichen but not for bryophyte species richness
Sylvo-pastoral systems are species-rich man-made landscapes that are currently often severely threatened by abandonment or management intensification. At low tree densities, single trees in these systems represent habitat islands for epiphytic cryptogams. Here, we focused on sycamore maple (Acer pseudoplatanus) wooded pastures in the northern European Alps. We assessed per tree species richness...
متن کامل