Positive effect of catastrophic winds on reptile community recovery in pine plantations |
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| Institution: | 1. Granada University. Department of Zoology, Faculty of Sciences, Granada University, E-18071 Granada, Spain;2. CIBIO/InBIO (Centro de Investigação em Biodiversidade e Recursos Genéticos daUniversidade do Porto). R. Padre Armando Quintas, 4485-661 Vairão, Portugal;1. Institute for Global Food Security, School of Biological Sciences, Queen''s University Belfast, Belfast BT9 5DL, Northern Ireland;2. DSI/NRF Research Chair in Inland Fisheries and Freshwater Ecology, South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity, Makhanda 6140, South Africa;3. Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, School of Biological Sciences, University of Reading, Harborne Building, Reading RG6 6AS, England;4. Department of Ecology and Resource Management, University of Venda, Thohoyandou 0950, South Africa;5. South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity, Makhanda 6140, South Africa;6. Department of Biological Sciences and Biotechnology, Botswana International University of Science and Technology, Palapye, Botswana;7. Department of Zoology and Entomology, Rhodes University, Makhanda 6140, South Africa;1. Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL, Zürcherstrasse 111, CH-8093 Birmensdorf, Switzerland;2. Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, 8057 Zürich, Switzerland;3. info fauna karch, UniMail, Bâtiment G, Bellevaux 51, 2000 Neuchâtel, Switzerland;1. Departamento de Ecología, Genética y Evolución, Instituto IEGEBA (CONICET-UBA), Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Ciudad Universitaria, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, Intendente Güiraldes 2160, C1428EGA, Argentina;2. División de Mastozoología, Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales “Bernardino Rivadavia,” Avenida Ángel Gallardo 470, C1405DJR Buenos Aires, Argentina. |
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| Abstract: | The greatest threat to biodiversity is the alteration and destruction of habitats, and one of the causes is tree plantation, which normally are monospecific and unnatural high-density forest stands. In Spain these contain mainly Pinus species, and cover 25% of the forested area. Due to their dense canopy cover, these monocultures harbor poor communities in terms of species richness and abundance of other organisms, such as reptiles. In November 2014, wind storms affected a pine plantation in the western end of the Sierra Nevada Natural Park, totally or partially knocking down pines 65 years old. We have studied the response of the reptile community in the affected plots three and five years after the disturbance. Due to the low thermal quality of pine plantations for reptiles, we hypothesized that reptile community metrics (abundance and species richness) would be positively affected by this perturbation. We found greater richness and density of reptiles in the plots affected by maximum and intermediate disturbance than in the non-affected plots. We conclude that natural catastrophic events such as wind storms can diversify reptile communities in Mediterranean pine plantations thanks to a rapid response of generalist reptile species. |
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