Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
4385629 | Biological Conservation | 2011 | 11 Pages |
Abstract
Remote sensing, farmland statistics and species data have been used in some EU countries to create maps to estimate the extent of semi-natural habitat cover but these are acknowledged as being too broad scale. In this study, we examined a method of fine-scale prediction of the spatial coverage of semi-natural habitats in lowland farms. A generalized additive model (GAM) was used to investigate the relationships between landscape and farm management variables and the lowland farmland habitat biodiversity on 32 farms outside of conservation designations, in a region of western Ireland. Semi-natural habitat cover on lowland farms could be predicted with a model using stocking density, soil diversity and river and stream length. It is proposed that this model could be used to predict the coverage of semi-natural habitats on farms in other regions of Ireland with similar land-use and landscape. A similar modelling approach could be adapted for application in other regions of Ireland and across Europe with different landscapes to predict semi-natural habitat coverage.
Keywords
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Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
Authors
Caroline A. Sullivan, David Bourke, Micheline Sheehy Skeffington, John A. Finn, Stuart Green, Stephen Kelly, Mike J. Gormally,