Elsevier

Pedobiologia

Volume 48, Issues 5–6, 13 December 2004, Pages 609-622
Pedobiologia

6th INTERNATIONAL SEMINAR ON APTERYGOTA, SIENA, ITALY, 2002
Effects of land-use on Collembola diversity patterns in a Mediterranean landscape

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pedobi.2004.06.004Get rights and content

Summary

Collembola communities were sampled along a gradient of soil-use intensification in a typical Mediterranen landscape dominated by cork-oak. This gradient ranged from a land-use unit (LUU1) dominated by closed oak forest with minimum intervention to an unit entirely composed of a monoculture crop submitted to frequent anthropogenic disturbances (LUU6), passing through LUUs with managed woodland (LLU2) or dominated by open cork-oak areas and pastures (LUU3 and LUU5). The Collembola community in the overall area was dominated by a few abundant species, mainly Isotomidae, present in almost all units. Abundance, diversity and species richness decreased along the gradient, with the agricultural site presenting an impoverished community. Diversity descriptors were positively and significantly correlated with habitat diversity, measured on the basis of the proportion of the different soil-use types present at each land-use unit. Multivariate analysis revealed changes in Collembola community composition between the LUUs, with LUU6 detaching from the rest. LUU1 and LUU2, despite the less diverse community of the latter, formed a separate group from the remaining two units (LUU3 and LUU5). Species composition in all these units was mainly determined by soil-use types present at each LUU (open cork-oak land and pastures vs. closed cork-oak areas), the proportion of the different soil-use types and the different management practices adopted for each soil use. Overall analysis revealed that Collembola reacted to changes in the landscape structure, with community composition giving a more robust response than diversity indices.

Introduction

In terrestrial environments, the status of biodiversity at local or regional level is influenced by driving forces such as agriculture, forestry and urbanisation. These forces cause changes in land-use (e.g., fragmentation, intensification, afforestation, reforestation), which directly affect diversity patterns of living organisms. To develop a set of effective tools, able to monitor these changes, is one of the priorities within the EU, as stated in the Convention of Biological Diversity. The study presented here is integrated in the EU funded project BIOASSESS, the goal of which is to develop a set of “biodiversity assessment tools” to monitor changes in biodiversity patterns due to policy-derived changes in soil use. Among others (plants, lichens, soil macrofauna, carabids, butterflies and birds), Collembola were chosen as a study group due to their acknowledged representativity in the soil system in terms of biodiversity and due to their ability to respond to a wide range of disturbance factors.

Collembola respond to changes in soil chemistry (Hågvar and Abrahamsen, 1984), namely soil pH (Vilkamaa and Huhta, 1986; Van Straalen and Verhoef, 1997; Ponge, 2000; Loranger et al., 2001), and changes in microclimatic and microhabitat conditions like moisture (Poinsot-Balaguer, 1975; Verhoef and Van Selm, 1983; Pflug and Wolters, 2001), amount and quality of litter (Ponge et al., 1993; Cortet and Poinsot-Balaguer, 1998; Hasegawa, 2002) and humus type (Ponge and Prat, 1982; Chagnon et al., 2000). Also, different vegetation communities host different species assemblages of Collembola (Pozo et al., 1986; Setälä et al., 1995; Gama et al., 1997; Benito and Sanchez, 2000); this is particularly true when comparing open and closed habitats (Bonnet et al., 1976, Bonnet et al., 1977; Ponge, 1980, Ponge, 1993).

Collembola communities also react to different forest and agricultural activities. Reforestation with exotic tree species is known to cause a decrease in diversity (Bonnet et al., 1977; Gama et al., 1994; Deharveng, 1996; Pinto et al., 1997; Sousa et al., 1997; Barrocas et al., 1998; Sousa et al., 2000) and logging may cause a disruption on the biocenotic equilibrium of Collembola communities over several years (Bengtsson et al., 1997), depending on the regime adopted. Crop management practices can also lead to changes in species assemblages and diversity (Nakamura, 1988; Dekkers et al., 1994; Filser et al., 1995; Reddy et al., 1996; Loranger et al., 1999; Frampton, 2000; Alvarez et al., 2001; Gardi et al., 2002). Moreover, landscape configuration (e.g., heterogeneity, fragmentation) and the type of use (e.g., pasture, farm forest) also regulates Collembola community composition (Filser et al., 1996; Lauga-Reyrel and Deconchat, 1999; Alvarez et al., 2000; Dombos, 2001).

However, and despite the information available, studies evaluating the use of Collembola as bioindicators of changes in soil intensification at landscape level are lacking. The results presented here correspond to the data obtained for Collembola on the Portuguese sites of the BIOASSESS project. Collembola diversity patterns were evaluated along a gradient of land-use intensification in a typical Mediterranean landscape dominated by Quercus suber. The gradient ranged from areas with cork-oak forest with minimum disturbance, to agricultural plots with monoculture crops, passing through areas with managed parklands and pastures. The main goal was to detect changes in biodiversity patterns and community composition along this land-use gradient and to evaluate the use of Collembola as tools to depict changes at landscape level.

Section snippets

Site description

The study was located in the consolidated alluvial plain of the Tagus river (left bank), 20 km east of Lisbon, Portugal (ca 4250°N 5150°E). The altitude ranges from 8 to 45 m. The climate of the area is typically Mediterranean: about 80% of relative humidity, no frost; annual rainfall averages 574 mm (concentrated in November–February) while mean temperature is 16.3 °C (5.9 and 28.8 °C as extreme mean temperatures in January and July, respectively) (data for Montijo air base, 5 km away).

The area was

Physical and chemical characterisation and habitat diversity

Physical and chemical characterisation of the different sites revealed several significant differences in some of the parameters measured (Table 1). These occurred more at the mineral horizon, where most of the differences were found between the woodland areas (LUU1–LUU5) and the agricultural site (LUU6). The exception was observed for the water content, with LUU2 presenting the lowest value. This low water content was also observed in the organic horizon, and could have been caused by the late

Changes in Collembola community composition

The Collembola community in the study area was strongly dominated by Isotomidae (with more than 50% of the specimens identified and 35% of species collected), and Poduromorpha (with 40% of species richness). A similar pattern is reported by Lauga-Reyrel and Deconchat (1999) for oak coppice forests in southern France. Dominant Isotomid species presented a high reproductive rate, confirmed by the large number of juveniles found. This feature allowed some of them (e.g., C. thermophilus, C.

Acknowledgements

This study was sponsored by the EU, integrated in the BIOASSESS project (Contract No.: EVK4 — 1999-00280). The authors would like to thank the Administration of Companhia das Lezírias (in the person of Eng° Sérvulo Correia) and the Força Aérea Portuguesa – Campo de Tiro de Alcochete (in the person of Cmte Norte Jacinto) for allowing the realisation of the field work.

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