The utility of ancient forest indicator species in urban environments: A case study from Poznań, Poland

We aimed to assess the impact of land-use structure on AFIS occurrence and evaluation of these bioindicators in urban conditions. We compiled data about forest continuity based on archival maps and forest management plans; floristic records of 79 AFIS occurrences were collected within a 1 × 1 km grid and land-use form structure in Poznań (W Poland). We tested fidelity of AFIS using χ² tests and effects of land-use structure using random forest models. We also checked spatial autocorrelation and its impact on AFIS distribution patterns within old and recent forests, using spatially explicit generalized linear models. We found a strong relationship between AFIS number per grid square and fraction of forests and waters in land-use structure. Relationships between AFIS distribution and land-use shows that AFIS are a good proxy describing human impact or an urbanity gradient. AFIS number per grid square shows small, but significant positive spatial autocorrelation, which suggests possibilities of migration into new forests. AFIS, treated as a bioindicative group of species, may be a useful indicator of landscape and land-use structure transformation in urban environments. Occurrence of many AFIS that are endangered at the city scale indicates the need for conservation of old forests in urban areas, to preserve biodiversity in urban environments. Thus, AFIS may act as indicators of old forests with high conservation value in cities, which need special protection.     

Forest conservation and land development in Puerto Rico

In the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico, rapid land-use changes over the past century have included recent land-cover conversion to urban/built-up lands. Observations of this land development adjacent to reserves or replacing dense forest call into question how the changes relate to forests or reserved lands. Using existing maps, this study first summarizes island-wide land-cover change between 1977-78 and 1991-92. Then, using binomial logit modeling, it seeks evidence that simple forest cover attributes, reserve locations, or existing land cover influence land development locations. Finally, this study quantifies land development, reserve protection and forest cover by ecological zone. Results indicate that 1) pasture is more likely to undergo land development than shrubland plus forest with low canopy density, 2) forest condition and conservation status appear unimportant in that development locations neither distinguish between classes of forest canopy development nor relate to forest patch size or reserve proximity, and 3) most land development occurs in the least-protected ecological zones. Outside the boundaries of strictly protected forest and other reserves, accessibility, proximity to existing urban areas, and perhaps desirable natural settings, serve to increase land development. Over the coming century, opportunities to address ecological zone gaps in the islands forest reserve system could be lost more rapidly in lowland ecological zones, which are relatively unprotected.This revised version was published online in May 2005 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Modelling the impact of agricultural abandonment and wildfires on vertebrate diversity in Mediterranean Europe

Agricultural land abandonment, widespread in the Mediterranean, is leading to a recovery of scrubland and forests which are replacing open habitats and increasing wildfire events. Using published data, we modelled the global and regional impact of abandonment and wildfires on 554 species of terrestrial vertebrates occurring in Mediterranean Europe. For all groups except amphibians, open habitats or farmland sustained higher species richness. Open habitats showed regional differences in their conservation value, western areas being particularly important for birds and amphibians and eastern areas for reptiles. Scrublands hosted fewer species than open habitats, farmland and forest, but sustained several endemic birds and mammals. The greater species richness of forests was mostly due to species widespread in Europe. Wildfires promote scrubland expansion in detriment of forest; because more species are associated to eastern forests, fire is predicted to affect more seriously this region. Scrubland conservation value was found to be highest in the west, where fire might have a positive impact. Fire regime, however, plays a crucial role. Although large fires have a negative impact, small-scale fires may favour biodiversity in abandoned areas. Due to the intrinsic difficulty in managing abandoned land to preserve the original Mediterranean vertebrate diversity, the best option to achieve this goal is the development of policies designed to make farmers and traditional farmland survive.     

Impact of land-use change on biodiversity and ecosystem services in the Chilean temperate forests

Context

Land-use change impacts biodiversity and ecosystem services, which are intrinsically related. There is a serious lack of knowledge concerning on how land-use change affects this relationship at landscape level, where the greatest impacts have been reported. A proper knowledge of that relationship would provide crucial information for planning conservation strategies. The forest landscape of southern Chile, which includes Valdivian Temperate Forest, has been designated as a hotspot for biodiversity conservation. However, this landscape has been transformed by land-use change.

Objective

We evaluated the impact of land-use change on the spatial patterns of the diversity of native forest habitat and the influence of these impacts on the provision of the ecosystem services water supply, erosion control, and organic matter accumulation from 1986 to 2011.

Methods

The evaluation, at the landscape level, was carried out using satellite images, landscape metrics, spatially explicit models and generalized linear models. Results: We found that the area loss of native forest habitat was 12%, the number patches of native forest habitat increased more than 150% and the Shannon diversity index decreased by 0.20. The largest decrease in the provision of services was recorded for erosion control (346%), and the smallest for water supply (11%).

Conclusions

The loss of provision of the ecosystem services can be explained by the interaction between the area loss, increase in the number patches and diversity loss. We recommend that the conservation planning strategies should consider the current landscape configuration, complemented with land-use planning.

     

The importance of university campuses for the avian diversity of cities

In a world of increasing urban areas and their subsequent negative effect on biodiversity, university campuses arise as environmentally friendly designs that can help enhancing biodiversity. However, current information on the topic is mainly based on single-campus studies, taxonomic diversity variables (e.g., species richness), and specific geographic regions like Asia or North America. Multi-campus comparisons, studies on other components of biodiversity (e.g., functional or phylogenetic diversity) and biodiversity information from other regions of the world are needed to generalize the previous findings. In this study, we try to fill in these gaps by simultaneously investigating taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity of bird communities on 15 university campuses of Spain, which is located within the Mediterranean hotspot of biodiversity where no previous study on this topic have been conducted. We compared campus areas with other randomly selected urban areas to test whether university campuses hold higher levels of bird diversity than non-campus areas. We also analyzed other environmental variables (e.g., green and building cover in and around campuses) to identify whether their influence in university campuses varies from other urban areas. Our results show that taxonomic diversity was higher within university campuses compared to other areas, but this pattern was not confirmed for functional and phylogenetic diversity. We found that grass cover, buildings, and the green area around the study areas have different associations with taxonomic, functional, or phylogenetic diversity respectively in campuses or non-campus areas. Our findings highlight the importance of university campuses for the conservation of Mediterranean urban biodiversity and support their use as relevant resources for promoting nature conservation among citizens.     

Towards an energy–landscape integrated analysis? Exploring the links between socio-metabolic disturbance and landscape ecology performance (Mallorca,Spain, 1956–2011)

Context

The role of agricultural landscapes in biodiversity conservation is an emerging topic in a world experiencing a worrying decrease of species richness. Farm systems may either decrease or increase biological diversity, depending on land-use intensities and management.

Objectives

We present an intermediate disturbance-complexity model (IDC) of cultural landscapes aimed at assessing how different levels of anthropogenic disturbance on ecosystems affect the capacity to host biodiversity depending on the land matrix heterogeneity. It is applied to the Mallorca Island, amidst the Mediterranean biodiversity hotspot.

Methods

The model uses the disturbance exerted when farmers alter the Net Primary Production through land-use change as well as when they remove a share of it (HANPP), together with Shannon–Wiener index (H′) of land-cover diversity. The model is tested with a twofold-scalar experimental design (1:50,000 and 1:5000) of a set of landscape units along three time points (1956, 1989, 2011). Species richness of breeding and wintering birds, taken as a biodiversity proxy, is used in an exploratory factor analysis.

Results

The results clearly show that when intermediate levels of HANPP are performed within intermediate levels of complexity (H′) in landscape patterns, like agro-forest mosaics, great bird species richness and high socio-ecological resilience can be maintained. Yet, these complex-heterogeneous landscapes are currently vanishing due to industrial farm intensification, rural abandonment and urban sprawl.

Conclusions

The results make apparent the usefulness of transferring the concept of intermediate disturbance-complexity interplay to cultural landscapes. Our spatial-explicit IDC model can be used as a tool for strategic environmental assessment of land-use planning.

     

Conservation planning in a fire-prone Mediterranean region: threats and opportunities for bird species

In response to the processes threatening biodiversity such as habitat loss, effective selection of priority conservation areas is required. However, reserve selection methods usually ignore the drivers of future habitat changes, thus compromising the effectiveness of conservation. In this work, we formulated an approach to explicitly quantify the impact of fire on conservation areas, considering such disturbance as a driver of land-cover changes. The estimated fire impact was integrated as a constraint in the reserve selection process to tackle the likely threats or opportunities that fire disturbance might cause to the targeted species depending on their habitat requirements. In this way, we selected conservation areas in a fire-prone Mediterranean region for two bird assemblages: forest and open-habitat species. Differences in conservation areas selected before and after integrating the impact of fire in the reserve selection process were assessed. Integration of fire impact for forest species moved preferences towards areas that were less prone to burn. However, a larger area was required to achieve the same conservation goals. Conversely, integration of fire impacts for open-habitat species shifted preferences towards conservation areas in locations where the persistence of their required habitat is more likely (i.e. shrublands). In other words, we prioritized the conservation of not only the current distribution of open-habitat birds, but also the disturbance process (i.e. fire) that favours their preferred habitat and distributions in the long term. Finally, this work emphasizes the need to consider the opposing potential impacts of wildfires on species for an effective conservation planning.     

Openness as a key-variable for analysis of management trade-offs in urban woodlands

There is currently increasing pressure on urban woodland in industrialised countries. Management of such areas is shifting towards multiple-use with focus on both recreation and biodiversity conservation. We examined the concept of “openness” as part of a possible tool for planners and decision makers. Our field studies were conducted in oak-dominated urban woodlands in southern Sweden with the focus on understory density. In a field experiment we found that understory density was greatly influenced by management, but effects appeared to be site-dependent. Photographs from the field sites were shown to panels of students to analyse recreational preferences in relation to openness. The photographs showed similar woodland types but with different understory density, although the quantification of this variation was not revealed to the participants. In general, open forests were considered most attractive for recreation but 74% of the respondents claimed that they preferred a mix of open and closed forest. Frequent forest visitors preferred relatively closed forests but infrequent visitors liked more open forests. As an example of management effects on biodiversity, we examined the density and diversity of woodland birds in relation to the management. We found that bird densities decreased in the plots with extensive removal of understory. We suggest that variables related to openness can be used in the planning process, especially at fine-grained scales, to analyse different management options and make trade-offs between interests in multiple-use woodland sites.     

Trade-offs between tree cover, carbon storage and floristic biodiversity in reforesting landscapes

This study explores the relationships between an increase in tree cover area (i.e., natural and planted-tree land covers) and changes in forest carbon storage and the potential of a landscape to provide habitat for native floristic biodiversity. Four areas experiencing an increase in tree cover were analyzed. We developed a metric estimating the potential to support native biodiversity based on tree cover type (plantation or natural forests) and the landscape pattern of natural and anthropogenic land covers. We used published estimates for forest and plantation carbon stocks for each region. Focus regions in northwestern Costa Rica, northern Vietnam, southern Chile and highland Ecuador all showed an increase in tree cover area of 390?%, 260?%, 123?% and 418?%, respectively. Landscapes experiencing increases in natural secondary forest also experienced an increase in carbon stored above and below ground, and in the potential to support native floristic biodiversity. Study landscapes in Chile and Ecuador experiencing an expansion of exotic plantations saw their carbon stock decrease along with their potential to support native floristic biodiversity. This study shows that an increase in forest area does not necessarily imply an increased provision of ecosystem services when landscapes are reforesting with monoculture plantations of exotic tree species. Changes in the support of native biodiversity and the carbon stored in pulp rotation plantations, along with other ecosystem services, should be fully considered before implementing reforestation projects.     

A rapid assessment of landscape biodiversity using diversity profiles of arthropod morphospecies

Context

The assessment of land-use impacts on biodiversity is one of the central themes of landscape ecology and conservation biology. However, due to the complexity of biodiversity, it is impossible to obtain complete information about the diversity of all species even for small areas, necessitating the selection of individual species or assemblages thereof as species surrogate. In parts of the world where taxonomic expertise is lacking, species identification has hindered progress in biodiversity conservation, and the only practical, relatively-accurate option, is the use of taxonomic minimalism.

Objective

We carried out a rapid biodiversity assessment based on three surrogates—land-use (driver-surrogate), terrestrial arthropods (species-surrogate) and morphospecies (taxonomic-surrogate)—to determine the impacts of land-use on biodiversity of the Western Region (Ghana), an area covering ~4 % of the West African biodiversity hotspot.

Method

We used diversity profiles to visualize the distribution of a total of 8848 arthropod individuals over seven land-use types which define the complete heterogeneity of the landscape.

Results

Here, we present both sample and asymptotic diversity profiles of arthropod morphospecies for each land-use type and the potential of each land-use type for conserving arthropods.

Conclusions

We conclude that (1) the morphospecies approach is useful for detecting differences in species diversity of land-use types; (2) the concept of asymptotic diversity may not be necessary for land-use based biodiversity comparison; and (3) maximum diversity profiles are useful for determining the land-use conservation values in cases where pristine areas are not available.

     

Past,present and future of wild ungulates in relation to changes in land use

In recent decades, Mediterranean landscapes have been experiencing more rapid changes in land use than usual, which have affected the ecology of the species inhabiting this biodiversity hotspot. Some studies have assessed the effect of such changes on biodiversity, but most of these were diachronic studies of population dynamics, or synchronic studies of species habitat selection, whereas few studies have simultaneously taken into account temporal changes in habitat composition and changes in species distribution. This study analysed the effects of land-use changes on the distribution of wild ungulates (Capreolus capreolus, Capra pyrenaica, Cervus elaphus and Sus scrofa). Using favourability function and Markov chain analysis combined with cellular automata, we addressed the following objectives: (i) to examine the environmental determinants of ungulate distribution in the past (1960s) and present (1990s), (ii) to model land use for 2040 to forecast future species distributions and (iii) to assess the biogeographical differences between the above-mentioned study periods (past–present and present–future). Species favourability was predicted to be more widely distributed in the present than in the past, but this increase varied across species. Areas predicted to be favourable in the present should remain stable in the future, but in addition there will be more new favourable areas not previously occupied by these species. The results are discussed from the perspective of the socio-economic relevance of wild ungulates in relation to some unfavourable areas of Mediterranean regions.     

Preferences of urban dwellers on urban forest recreational services in South Korea

This paper aims to investigate the preferences of urban dwellers for various attributes of urban forests, with an emphasis on forest recreational services. A choice experiment was conducted using face-to-face interviews with 823 urban dwellers in 2010. Urban forest attributes such as trails, slope, biodiversity, environmental education programs and entrance fees were found to influence Korean citizens’ preferences regarding urban forests. Among the six urban forest attributes, biodiversity was the most influential among Korean urban dwellers in their choice of urban forest recreation. Three latent groups with relatively homogeneous preferences over various urban forest attributes were identified. Residential area, family composition and the purpose of their visit determined group membership. It was notable that the preferences of urban forest recreationists differ from the general preferences of visitors to forests located in remote areas. Urban forest planning and management should consider the attributes of urban forests and the preferences of citizens visiting urban forests to improve urban dwellers’ welfare.     

A balancing act: Biodiversity and human wellbeing considerations in the management of urban forest in a global biodiversity hotspot

Environmental and urban forest managers in cities located in highly biodiverse regions may need to balance biodiversity conservation with the provision of ecosystem services to people. However, striking this balance is not easy and many competing factors influence the decision-making process. Set in the Perth Metropolitan Area, located in the global biodiversity hotspot of the Southwestern Australia Floristic Province, this study aimed to understand: (i) the extent to which a benefits-oriented approach is used by local governments to optimise biodiversity and human wellbeing urban forest outcomes, and (ii) what other factors influence the decision-making process shaping urban forest composition. Using a social-ecological framework, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 29 local government practitioners. We found that biodiversity conservation is actively considered in the planning and management of urban forest in natural areas and parks, but rarely in streetscapes. Maximising shade and cooling, and to a lesser extent enhancing sense of place, were the key benefits actively sought in streetscapes. Parks appeared to straddle the middle ground as areas with most flexibility to accommodate multiple biodiversity and human wellbeing benefits. Yet, benefits were only some of a multitude of social-ecological factors influencing the decision-making process shaping urban forest composition. In particular, streetscapes were affected by a large number of social and political factors (e.g., perceived risk and nuisance, ad-hoc decisions by elected members), many of them leading to suboptimal urban forest outcomes. For a benefits-oriented approach to prevail in complex and contested urban spaces it is important that the decision-making process is evidence-informed and capable of handling the challenges and conflicts that are likely to arise. Reactive decision-making results in a conservative, “safe” species palette that over time defines streetscapes by what they do not do (creating disservices) rather than what they do (delivering multiple biodiversity and wellbeing benefits), which ultimately is not a desired outcome in the context of an increasingly urbanized world.     

The efficacy of protected areas and private land for plant conservation in a fragmented landscape

Context

Protected areas are a cornerstone of the global strategy for conserving biodiversity, and yet their efficacy in comparison to unprotected areas is rarely tested. In the highly fragmented forests of temperate regions, landscape context and forest history may be more important than protection status for plant species diversity.

Objectives

To determine whether there are differences in plant diversity between protected areas and private lands while controlling for landscape context, forest age, and other important factors.

Methods

We used a database of 156 one-hectare forest plots distributed over 120,000 km² in the fragmented forests of southern Ontario to test whether protected areas and private forests differed in native species richness, relative abundance of exotic species, and the probability of finding species of conservation concern.

Results

Plots with more forest on the surrounding landscape had higher native species richness, lower abundance of exotic species, and greater probability of supporting at least one species of conservation concern. Young forests tended to have higher abundance of exotics, and were less likely to support species of conservation concern. Surprisingly, privately owned forests had greater native species richness and were more likely to support species of conservation concern once these other factors were accounted for. In addition, there were significant interactions between ownership type, forest history, and landscape context.

Conclusions

Our results highlight the importance of privately owned forests in this region, and the need to consider forest history and landscape context when comparing the efficacy of protected areas versus private land for sustaining biodiversity.

     

Spatial pattern of coniferous and deciduous forest patches in an Eastern North America agricultural landscape: the influence of land use and physical attributes

In agricultural landscapes, most studies have investigated the influence of the spatial pattern of forest patches on other ecological phenomena and processes, such as animal movement and biodiversity. However, few have focused on explaining the spatial pattern of the forest patches themselves. Understanding how these patterns relate to the processes that generate them is fundamental in developing a sound theory of landscape ecology, and in devising rational management strategies. In this paper, the pattern of the overall forest patches, as well as the pattern of deciduous and coniferous patches in an agricultural landscape of Southern Quebec, Canada, were analyzed and related to landscape physical attributes and land use, using remote sensing, geographic information systems and statistical methods. Results show that the role of landscape physical attributes on forest patch pattern has been modified by land use. In the study area, coniferous or deciduous patches are not associated with a specific surface deposit. In addition, physical attributes explain only a small proportion of the abundance of conifers on past abandoned land compared with land-use factors. Physical attributes only indirectly influence the forest pattern because they strongly influence the land-use practices. Our results reveal a conifer recovery process with the abandonment of agricultural land. On past abandoned land, conifers expand with increasing stand age, mostly by invasion from neighboring coniferous patches. Spatially, coniferous patches are usually located on the margins of the overall forest patches, and they are connected to non-forest land-use types such as crop and pasture, the latter being the most important. By showing the importance of some coniferous forest types that did not exist in the precolonial forest, a new perspective emerges when landscape, especially, land-use dynamics are taken into account.     

Measuring the impacts of climate change on the spatial structure of grasslands in urban landscapes of North America

Although the importance of biodiversity conservation has been acknowledged in urban landscapes of many forest, desert, and coastal biomes, urbanization in grasslands and its negative/positive impacts on biodiversity is understudied. We designed a pilot, spatio-temporal study to envision the impacts of land-use and vegetation change on the composition and configuration of grasslands in urban landscapes of the Upper Missouri River Basin under four climate-change scenarios (A1B, A2, B1, and B2) from 2020 to 2070 with respect to the IPCC’s high-level and mid-level Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP 8.5 w/m² and RCP 4.5 w/m²). We show that under the most climate-change scenarios, the rate of grassland conversion into other land cover classes from 2020 to 2070 was greater in urban landscapes than the whole region but this trend was not correlated with urban expansion. Conversely, habitat proximity was negatively correlated with urban expansion. The capacity of habitat patches to function as wildlife refugia in urban landscapes was substantially greater under the B2 scenario, where social equality and environmental conservation are highly prioritized. On the basis of the results of this study, we demonstrate that measuring the changes in the composition and configuration of habitat patches, combined with an understanding of the rate of grassland conversion can provide more detailed information about opportunities and limitations for biodiversity conservation in this region and beyond. If managed strategically, urban landscapes can play a positive role in conserving biodiversity and preserving ecosystems in regions predominantly used for agricultural lands.     

Extinction risk of wood-living model species in forest landscapes as related to forest history and conservation strategy

Dead wood is a critical resource for biodiversity in boreal forests. We analysed the persistence of five model species inhabiting dead wood. By parameterising a metapopulation model (the incidence function model), the model species were all assigned characteristics that makes it likely that they have disappeared from some (20%) forest landscapes with a long history of forest management. In the metapopulation model, a forest stand (5 ha) was regarded as a habitat patch. The amount of habitat in each patch was obtained from models of dead wood dynamics of Norway spruce in central Sweden. Dead wood generated by altered management over the entire landscape was found to be less efficient in reducing extinction risks in comparison to the same amount of dead wood generated by protecting reserves. Because generation of dead wood by altered management is often less expensive than setting aside reserves, it is difficult to determine which conservation measure is most cost-efficient. In a landscape subjected to forestry for the first time, it was better to preserve a few large reserves than many small ones. However, in a managed, highly fragmented forest landscape it was better to set aside many small reserves. The reason for this was that small plots with high habitat quality could be selected, while large reserves originally contained habitats both of high and low quality, and the rate of habitat quality increase was low. A strategy for biodiversity conservation in a managed forest landscape should include information about the history of the landscape, the current amount and spatial distribution of forest habitats, and the potential for rapid restoration of forest habitats, both on managed and unmanaged forest land.     

Changes in the riparian zone of the lower Eygues River,France, since 1830

The riparian forests along braided rivers are dynamic, frequently rejuvenated by floods and channel changes, and thus dominated by pioneer to middle stages of succession; they are sites of high biodiversity in some regions. The Lower Eygues River (drainage area 1150 km² in southeastern France) is such a braided river system with large alluvial forests dominated by Salix alba, Populus alba, and P. nigra. It was identified as a site of ecological interest by the EU under the Natura 2000 program. Such forests elsewhere in Europe have been identified as reference ecosystems. We documented the historical evolution of this alluvial forest from detailed (1:2500 scale) early 19th C parcel maps, early 20th C topographic maps, aerial photography from 1947 to 1996, and field surveys of topography and riparian vegetation in 1997–1998. Our results show that in 1830, the channel was wide, aggraded, and agricultural pressure extended literally to the channel edge. With decline in the rural population and reduced agricultural and grazing pressure in the catchment, erosion rates declined. Reduced sediment supply led to channel narrowing and incision. This channel narrowing, coupled with reduced agricultural pressure along the banks, has allowed riparian forest to colonize former active channel areas, especially within late 19th-century 20th century flood dykes. In recent decades, aggregate mining, and clearing for recreation and agriculture have fragmented the forest. Thus, the alluvial forest of the Lower Eygues is largely an artifact of changing human land-use over the past century, a context that should frame efforts for preservation and restoration.     

How does forest fragmentation affect tree communities? A critical case study in the biodiversity hotspot of New Caledonia

Context

The biodiversity hotspot for conservation of New Caledonia has facing high levels of forest fragmentation. Remnant forests are critical for biodiversity conservation and can help in understanding how does forest fragmentation affect tree communities.

Objective

Determine the effect of habitat configuration and availability on tree communities.

Methods

We mapped forest in a 60 km² landscape and sampled 93 tree communities in 52 forest fragments following stratified random sampling. At each sampling point, we inventoried all trees with a diameter at breast height ≥10 cm within a radius of 10 m. We then analysed the response of the composition, the structure and the richness of tree communities to the fragment size and isolation, distance from the edge, as well as the topographical position.

Results

Our results showed that the distance from the forest edge was the variable that explained the greatest observed variance in tree assemblages. We observed a decrease in the abundance and richness of animal-dispersed trees as well as a decrease in the abundance of large trees with increasing proximity to forest edges. Near forest edges we found a shift in species composition with a dominance of stress-tolerant pioneer species.

Conclusions

Edge-effects are likely to be the main processes that affect remnant forest tree communities after about a century of forest fragmentation. It results in retrogressive successions at the edges leading to a dominance of stress-tolerant species. The vegetation surrounding fragments should be protected to promote the long process of forest extension and subsequently reduce edge-effects.

     

Long-term forest dynamic after land abandonment in a fire prone Mediterranean landscape (central Corsica,France)

Two hundred years of landscape changes were studied on a 3,760 ha area of central Corsica (France) representing a typical Mediterranean environment. Different historical sources, including an accurate land-cover map from 1774 and statistics on land cover from 1848 and 1913, were used. Three additional maps (1960, 1975 and 1990) were drawn, and a complete fire history from 1957 to 1997 was created. Forests expanded slowly by a border effect. Forest expansion was more rapid in unburnt sites (0.59% per year) than in burnt sites (0.23% per year), mostly because the initial amount of forests was greater. Because of the border effect, the combination of past landscape pattern and short distance colonization abilities of forest species may have allowed the shrublands to persist in some places after land abandonment. This persistence may explain the pattern of fire in the landscape, since shrubland burn more readily than forests.