کد مقاله کد نشریه سال انتشار مقاله انگلیسی نسخه تمام متن
4386643 1304573 2008 9 صفحه PDF دانلود رایگان
عنوان انگلیسی مقاله ISI
Environmentally biased fragmentation of oak savanna habitat on southeastern Vancouver Island, Canada
موضوعات مرتبط
علوم زیستی و بیوفناوری علوم کشاورزی و بیولوژیک بوم شناسی، تکامل، رفتار و سامانه شناسی
پیش نمایش صفحه اول مقاله
Environmentally biased fragmentation of oak savanna habitat on southeastern Vancouver Island, Canada
چکیده انگلیسی
Quantifying the degree to which natural or protected areas are representative of a specified baseline provides critical information to conservation prioritization schemes. We report results on southeastern Vancouver Island, Canada, where we compared environmental conditions represented across the entire landscape, in oak savanna habitats prior to European settlement (<1850), and in both protected and unprotected oak savannas in the present-day. In this region, oak savannas represent a rare habitat type, harboring many threatened species. Before European settlement, oak savannas occurred in a distinctly different subset of environmental conditions than they do today. Compared to the entire landscape, oak savannas were historically found predominantly in warm, dry, flat, and low-lying areas, but habitat destruction has left oak savannas in largely the exact opposite set of conditions at present. Thus, the range of conditions in both protected and unprotected oak savannas at present are highly unrepresentative of historical conditions. It appears that fire management by indigenous peoples maintained oak savannas historically across large areas of flat low-lying conditions with deep soils, where succession otherwise produces closed coniferous forest. These areas have since been almost entirely converted to agricultural and urban areas, leaving remnant oak savannas largely on steep, rocky hilltops, where the habitat is maintained by shallow soils. Our results provide quantitative guidance for setting conservation priorities for oak savannas in this region, while highlighting the important general issue of the major role traditional land-use practices can play in shaping landscapes, and therefore in influencing the baselines used to set conservation priorities.
ناشر
Database: Elsevier - ScienceDirect (ساینس دایرکت)
Journal: Biological Conservation - Volume 141, Issue 10, October 2008, Pages 2576-2584
نویسندگان
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