The impact of land abandonment on the plant diversity of olive groves

Abstract

We investigated the effect of woody species’ encroachment on plant diversity changes with regard to vascular plants and bryophytes in traditional olive groves of the Maremma Regional Park (Tuscany, Italy) and assessed cross-taxon correlation between these two taxa. We classified the olive groves into four land use types, representing different successional stages. To describe the evenness of species distribution within a community, we plotted rank-abundance diagrams for each taxon and each land use type.\ud The relationship between the number and cover of vascular plants,therophytes, bryophytes, colonists and phanerophytes in each plot was examined using linear regression. The effects of land use type on vascular plant and bryophyte richness and assemblages were assessed by permutational uni- and multivariate analysis of variance. The congruence in\ud species composition between the two taxa was evaluated using Procrustes analysis. The number of vascular plants, bryophytes and therophytes decreased linearly with increased phanerophyte species cover. The number of species belonging to Thero-Brachypodietea progressively decreased throughout succession. Rank-abundance diagrams and multivariate analysis showed differences between the land use types, which were statistically significant\ud for vascular plants between the traditional olive groves and the other land use\ud types, and for bryophytes between the traditional olive groves and woodlands. PROTEST\ud analysis and NMDS graphs showed a correlation between vascular plant and bryophyte\ud communities. The results suggested that conservation measures are needed in the study\ud area in order to ensure both the maintenance of traditional olive groves of conservation\ud interest and high levels of environmental heterogeneity

The effects of farming system and soil management on floristic diversity in sloping olive groves

“…By contrast, very high percentages were recorded in abandoned or untilled olive groves. This contrasts with the results obtained by Maccherini et al (2013), who observed an impoverishment of the bryophyte cover in abandoned olive groves with a strong presence of woody species. Vegetation cover assessment shows that OT and CT had soil coverage of less than 30%, the minimum level considered for conservation agriculture systems (Lal, 2015).…”

Contribution to the study of Adriatic island flora: Vascular plant species diversity in the Croatian Island of Olib

“…A significant reduction in the vegetation and floristic diversity, as a result of secondary succession, was also previously shown on some Adriatic (Ljubičić, 2008;Sedlar, 2010) and Mediterranean islands (Maccherini et al, 2013).…”

Main Environmental Features Leading to Recent Land Abandonment in Murcia Region (Southeast Spain)

“…Nowadays, it is more related with European policies (Pointereau et al ., ; Renwick et al ., ) and affects thousands of squared kilometres throughout Europe (Cerdà, ; Suárez‐Seoane et al ., ; Cramer et al ., ; Cammeraat et al ., ). Land abandonment studies in Europe have been mostly conducted in the Mediterranean basin (Kosmas et al ., ; Rey‐Benayas et al ., ; Detsis ; Rey Benayas et al ., ) and in countries such as France (Piégay et al ., ; Cosandey et al ., ; Sluiter & De Jong, ; Bakker et al ., ), Italy (Renzi et al ., ; Dunjó et al ., ; Giupponi et al ., ; Garfi et al ., ; Ricotta et al ., ; Maccherini et al ., ), Greece (Kosmas et al ., ; Koulouri & Giourga, ; Zakkak et al ., ); Kizos & Koulouri, ; Bakker et al ., ), Portugal (Nunes et al ., ; Proença et al ., ) and Spain. The results of those studies show a recovery of the natural vegetation that resulted in a reduction in the runoff discharge and a clear decrease in the sediment yield (Keesstra et al , ), which has been demonstrated by direct measurements and modelling (Keesstra et al ., ; ).…”