Using extinctions in species distribution models to evaluate and predict threats: a contribution to plant conservation planning on the island of Sardinia

Fois, Mauro; Bacchetta, Gianluigi; Cuena-Lombraña, Alba; Cogoni, Donatella; Pinna, Maria Silvia; Sulis, Elena; Fenu, Giuseppe

doi:10.1017/s0376892917000108

Cited by 25 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…Firstly, analyses of human presence as a determining factor of current Mediterranean landscape and biodiversity patterns have faced several shortcomings, principally related to difficulties in accurately evaluating consequences of such a long-term presence, as well as the many indirect factors triggered by it. Therefore, if present-day biodiversity should be biased toward species that are generally more tolerant of humans [ 1 ], analyses accounting for absences or extinction events which can be related with certainty to human influence are barely feasible [ 21 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Disentangling the influence of environmental and anthropogenic factors on the distribution of endemic vascular plants in Sardinia

et al. 2017

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Due to the impelling urgency of plant conservation and the increasing availability of high resolution spatially interpolated (e.g. climate variables) and categorical data (e.g. land cover and vegetation type), many recent studies have examined relationships among plant species distributions and a diversified set of explanatory factors; nevertheless, global and regional patterns of endemic plant richness remain in many cases unexplained. One such pattern is the 294 endemic vascular plant taxa recorded on a 1 km resolution grid on the environmentally heterogeneous island of Sardinia. Sixteen predictors, including topographic, geological, climatic and anthropogenic factors, were used to model local (number of taxa inside each 1 km grid cell) Endemic Vascular Plant Richness (EVPR). Generalized Linear Models were used to evaluate how each factor affected the distribution of local EVPR. Significant relationships with local EVPR and topographic, geological, climatic and anthropogenic factors were found. In particular, elevation explained the larger fraction of variation in endemic richness but other environmental factors (e.g. precipitation seasonality and slope) and human-related factors (e.g. the Human Influence Index (HII) and the proportion of anthropogenic land uses) were, respectively, positively and negatively correlated with local EVPR. Regional EVPR (number of endemic taxa inside each 100 m elevation interval) was also measured to compare local and regional EVPR patterns along the elevation gradient. In contrast to local, regional EVPR tended to decrease with altitude partly due to the decreasing area covered along altitude. The contrasting results between local and regional patterns suggest that local richness increases as a result of increased interspecific aggregation along altitude, whereas regional richness may depend on the interaction between area and altitude. This suggests that the shape and magnitude of the species-area relationship might vary with elevation. This work provides—for the first time in Sardinia—a comprehensive analysis of the influence of environmental factors on the pattern of EVPR in the entire territory, from sea level to the highest peaks. Elevation, as well as other environmental and human-related variables, were confirmed to be influencing factors. In addition, variations of EVPR patterns at regional-to-local spatial scales inspire next investigations on the possible interaction between elevation and area in explaining patterns of plant species richness.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Lowland plains and coastal zones have also expanded rapidly due to agricultural and touristic development ( Fig 1C ). This is a common trend among Mediterranean islands, which has caused significant changes in their landscapes [ 21 ].…”

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Disentangling the influence of environmental and anthropogenic factors on the distribution of endemic vascular plants in Sardinia

et al. 2017

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“…Having been adapted to or even evolved in isolation, island native plant species often occur in small geographical ranges, tend to be habitat specialists and are consequently more vulnerable to the introduction of non-native competitors (Terzopoulou et al, 2015). It is not therefore surprising that island biotas have provided the majority of recorded global plant species extinctions since 1600 CE because of extensive deforestation, transformation of natural habitats and introduction of non-native species (Fois et al, 2018a;Terzopoulou et al, 2015). Of particular interest are mechanisms of invasibility in islands and the pattern of native/exotic richness relationships.…”

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confidence: 99%

Endemic and alien vascular plant diversity in the small Mediterranean islands of Sardinia: Drivers and implications for their conservation

Fois

Podda

Mèdail

et al. 2020

Biological Conservation

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Islands are of high interest for conservationists, due to their great biodiversity within discrete territories. Nonetheless, several mechanisms of plant diversity patterns are unknown, especially for continental islands. In this paper, we explored how endemic and alien vascular plant species richness and the compositional dissimilarity of small Mediterranean continental islands vary according to factors related to human activities, geography/landscape, and climate. Actions for endemic plant conservation were also prioritised according to both endemic and alien components. To this aim, data of endemic and alien plant species for forty islands of Sardinia were considered. Species-area residuals, which express the actual species composition free of area-effects, were modelled using 19 variables related to anthropogenic, geographic/landscape and climatic domains (group of factors). The geographic/landscape domain appeared to be important for both endemic and alien species richness and compositional dissimilarity, while the climatic one was especially relevant for alien species richness. The anthropogenic domain was mostly important for the compositional dissimilarity of aliens and for the endemic species richness. Actions for endemic plant conservation were of high priority for 14 islands; 11 of which are located off the northwest coast of Sardinia. Our research confirms that the Mediterranean small islands of Sardinia are plant endemism hotspots prone to alien invasion. Our findings suggest that removing anthropogenic disturbances is not sufficient to prevent plant invasions. Other factors related to climatic and geographic/ landscape domains are as or more important in determining endemic and alien plant composition.

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“…For this study, the ensemble models were implemented using three species distribution models, including generalized linear models (GLM), generalized boosted models (GBM), and a maximum entropy algorithm (MaxEnt). These species distribution models were selected based on their high predictive power [1,40,41,42]. For each model, we ran three replications where 75% of the occurrence points was used as training set, while the remaining 25% was used for model evaluation.…”

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Combining ensemble models and connectivity analyses to predict wolf expected dispersal routes through a lowland corridor

et al. 2020

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The Italian wolf (Canis lupus italicus) population has remained isolated South of the Alps for the last few thousand years. After a strong decline, the species has recolonized the Apennines and the Western Alps, while it is currently struggling to colonize the Eastern Alps. Recently, the species was detected in a lowland park connecting the Northern Apennines to the Central Alps. If the park was able to sustain a net wolf dispersal flow, this could significantly boost the connection with the Eastern Alps and the Dinaric-Balkan population. We investigated the suitability of the park as a functional ecological corridor for the wolf through the unhospitable lowland of Northern Italy. We collected wolf occurrence data in two study areas. We modeled species distribution running a separate ensemble model for each study area and then merging the output of the models to obtain an integrated suitability map. We used this map to identify corridors for the wolf adopting a factorial least-cost path and a cumulative resistant kernel approach. The connectivity models showed that only two corridors exist in the lowland areas between the Northern Apennines and the Central Alps. The Western corridor is a blind route, while the eastern corridor passes through the park and has a continuous course. However, the models also revealed a scarce resilience of corridor connectivity in the passageways between the park and the Apennines and the Prealps, which suggests that urgent management actions are necessary to ensure the future functionality of this important corridor.

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Using extinctions in species distribution models to evaluate and predict threats: a contribution to plant conservation planning on the island of Sardinia

Cited by 25 publications

References 47 publications

Disentangling the influence of environmental and anthropogenic factors on the distribution of endemic vascular plants in Sardinia

Disentangling the influence of environmental and anthropogenic factors on the distribution of endemic vascular plants in Sardinia

Endemic and alien vascular plant diversity in the small Mediterranean islands of Sardinia: Drivers and implications for their conservation

Combining ensemble models and connectivity analyses to predict wolf expected dispersal routes through a lowland corridor

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