EARLY HEARING DETECTION AND INTERVENTION VIRTUAL CONFERENCE
MARCH 2-5, 2021
(Virtually the same conference, without elevators, airplane tickets, or hotel room keys)
5/23/2019 | 2:45 PM - 3:00 PM | LOSS OF ALPINE GRASSLANDS AND PASTURES THREATENS TAXONOMIC AND FUNCTIONAL DIVERSITY OF STREAM BENTHIC MACROINVERTEBRATES | 151 DEF
LOSS OF ALPINE GRASSLANDS AND PASTURES THREATENS TAXONOMIC AND FUNCTIONAL DIVERSITY OF STREAM BENTHIC MACROINVERTEBRATES
European Alps are currently facing an on-going land use change: abandonment of low-intensity agricultural areas is constantly increasing, and scrub and forest areas are expanding. Whereas this process has been researched extensively in relation to terrestrial ecology issues such as plant diversity decline, no study has investigated the implications of land use changes on the fauna of Alpine streams.
In our study, we show that four types of land covers (rocks, grasslands above treeline, coniferous forests, bottom-valley pastures), measured at catchment and reach level, greatly influence the benthic macroinvertebrate communities of Alpine lotic environments in terms of taxonomic and functional composition.
We found a striking structural similarity between the macroinvertebrate communities of streams draining grasslands and those of pasture areas, thus revealing a smaller-than-expected effect of elevation in comparison to external land-use influence: the two mentioned communities exhibited not only the highest taxonomic richness, but also high functional richness and divergence.
These results suggest that the environmental benefits of Alpine low-intensity agricultural areas (grasslands and pastures) extends beyond the terrestrial habitats. Accordingly, more research efforts are needed to understand the dynamics influencing Alpine riverine habitats at landscape level.
- Landscape
- Spatial
- Invertebrate
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Presenters/Authors
Alberto Scotti
(), Institute for Alpine Environment, Eurac Research, Italy, alberto.scotti@eurac.edu;
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Leopold Füreder
(), University of Innsbruck, Austria, leopold.fuereder@uibk.ac.at;
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Thomas Marsoner
(), Eurac Research, Italy, thomas.marsoner@eurac.edu;
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Ulrike Tappeiner
(), Institute of Ecology, University of Innsbruck, Austria, ulrike.tappeiner@uibk.ac.at;
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Agnieszka Elzbieta Stawinoga
(), Eurac Research, Italy, Agnieszka.Stawinoga@eurac.edu;
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Roberta Bottarin
(), Institute for Alpine Environment, Eurac Research, Italy, roberta.bottarin@eurac.edu;
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