Biodiversity and Landscape Ecology Lab

Nature Conservation – a new dimension in Open Access publishing bridging science and application

2012-03-15T10:20:00.001+01:00

ECOLAND is participating in the launching of a new journal regarding Nature Conservation issues. This journal has its roots in the FP7 project SCALES.

In its first editorial co-signed by its editors, including Lluís Brotons, the journal introduces its role as a new open access, peer-reviewed journal bridging natural sciences, social sciences and hands-on applications in conservation management.

The journal covers all aspects of nature conservation and aims particularly at facilitating better interaction between scientists and practitioners. The journal will impose no restrictions on manuscript size or the use of colour. It will use an XML-based editorial workflow and several cutting-edge innovations in publishing and information dissemination. These include semantic mark-up of, and enhancements to published text, data, and extensive cross-linking within the journal and to external sources. We believe the journal will make an important contribution to better linking science and practice, offers rapid, peer-reviewed and flexible publication for authors and unrestricted access to content.

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ECOLAND participa en el llançament d’una nova revista de caràcter internacional sobre temes relacionats amb la conservació de la natura.

En el primer editorial de la revista, co-signat pels seus editors, entre els que s’inclou by Lluís Brotons, la revista introdueix el seu role com a nova revista open access amb l’ojectiu d’acostar les ciències naturals, socials i les aplicacions en gestió i conservació.

New ECOLAND postdoc: Laura Cardador

2012-03-14T18:51:00.001+01:00

Laura Cardador has joined the ECOLAND and Baclab groups in the context of the Steppe-ahead project.

Her main research interests have focussed on the ecological factors affecting spatial distribution and population dynamics of species, paying particular attention to human-induced environmental changes.

She has also wide interest in conservation biology. Most of her research has centred in agricultural landscapes and farmland bird populations. Using these systems as study models, she has worked on habitat selection and species distribution models, demographic components, regulation processes and intraspecific competition.

Background

2006 – 2011: European PhD (FPU Fellowship, Spanish Government). Department of Animal Biology, University of Barcelona, Spain: “Factors affecting expansion success of bird populations in human-transformed environments: the Marsh harrier Circus aeruginosus in the Ebro Valley”.

2004 - 2005: Master in Experimental Biology, University of Barcelona, Spain

1999 – 2004: Degree in Biology. University of Barcelona, Spain

Publications

Peer-reviewed Journals (SCI)

Cardador L, Carrete M, Mañosa S (2012) Inter-individual variability and conspecific densities: consequences for population regulation and range expansion. PLoS ONE (doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0033375).

Cardador L, Planas E, Varea A, Mañosa S (2012) Feeding behaviour and diet composition of the Marsh Harrier Circus aeruginosus in agricultural landscapes. Bird Study (doi: 10.1080/00063657.2011.648165).

Cardador L, Carrete M, Mañosa S (2011) Can intensive agricultural landscapes favour some raptor species? The marsh harrier Circus aeruginosus in Northeastern Spain. Animal Conservation 14: 382-390.

Cardador L, Mañosa S (2011) Foraging habitat use and selection of Western Marsh-Harriers (Circus aeruginosus) in intensive agricultural landscapes. Journal of Raptor Research 45: 168-173.

Cardador L, Mañosa S, Varea A, Bertolero A (2009) Ranging behaviour of Marsh Harriers Circus aeruginosus in agricultural landscapes. Ibis 151: 766-770.

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Nova postdoc al group ECOLAND

La Laura Cardador s’ha integrat als groups ECOLAND i Baclab en el contexte del projecte Steppe-ahead.

Els principals interessos de la Laura s’han centrat en l’estudi dels factors ecològics que afecten la distribució i la dinàmica de les espècies, prestant una atenció especial als efectes derivats dels canvis ambientals relacionats amb les activitats humanes.

New article: Calibrating dispersal in hybrid species distribution models

2012-02-24T19:20:00.001+01:00

In a new article published in Diversity and Distributions, two members of the ECO-LAND group (Miquel De Cáceres and Lluís Brotons) have studied the usefulness of a general-purpose bird monitoring programme (the common breeding bird survey of Catalonia, SOCC) for the calibration of dispersal parameters in hybrid SDMs. The authors modelled the distribution changes of twelve open-habitat bird species in landscapes whose dynamics are driven by fire and forest regeneration. As a benchmark case, the authors took the calibration of the models using a programme specifically designed to monitor bird communities within areas affected by wildfires (DINDIS).

Temporally replicated observations are essential for the calibration and validation of species distribution models (SDMs) aiming at making temporal extrapolations. In particular, temporal observations can be used to calibrate sub-models dealing with population dynamics and dispersal processes.

Both calibration with CBS and DINDIS data yielded sound spread parameter estimates and range dynamics that suggested dispersal limitations. However, compared to calibration with DINDIS data, calibration with CBS data leads to biased estimates of spread distance for seven species and to a higher degree of uncertainty in predicted range dynamics for six species. Thus, if the dynamics of the target species occur within areas not well covered, general-purpose monitoring data can lead to biased and inaccurate parameter estimates.

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La calibració de la dispersió en models híbrids de distribució d’espècies

Les observacions replicades temporalment són essencials per la calibració i validació de models de distribució de espècies (SDMs) que intentin fer extrapolacions temporals. En particular, les observacions temporals són útils per a calibrar sub-models de processos relacionats amb la dinàmica poblacional i la dispersió.

En un article recentment publicat a la revista Diversity and Distributions, dos membres del grup ECO-LAND (Miquel De Cáceres i Lluís Brotons) han estudiat la utilitat d'un programa de monitoreig no-orientat (el Seguiment d'Ocells Comuns de Catalunya, SOCC) per a la calibració de paràmetres de dispersió en SDMs híbrids.

Els autors han modelat els canvis de distribució de dotze espècies d'ocells d'hàbitats oberts en un paisatge on la dinàmica és conduïda pel foc i la regeneració forestal. Com a cas de referència, els autors han près la calibració dels models utilitzant un programa de monitoreig especificament disenyat per a seguir la evolució de les comunitats d'ocells en àrees afectades per incendis forestals (DINDIS).

Tant la calibració amb dades del SOCC com DINDIS proporcionar estimacions de paràmetres plausibles i dinàmiques de distribució que suggereixen limitacions degudes a la dispersió. No obstant, la calibració amb dades del SOCC, per comparació amb dades del DINDIS, proporcionà estimacions esbiaixades de la distància de dispersió en set dels dotze casos estudiats, i conduí a una major incertesa en la dinàmica del rang de la distribució per a sis espècies. Per tant, si la dinàmica de distribució de l'espècie objectiu ocorre en zones no ben cobertes pel programa de monitoreig, la calibració pot conduir a paràmetres esbiaixats i prediccions errònies.

De Cáceres M, Brotons L (2012) Calibration of hybrid species distribution models: the value of targeted vs. general-purpose monitoring data. Diversity & Distributions (http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1472-4642.2012.00899.x).

New article: Recent ﬁre history and connectivity determine bird distribution in landscapes dominated by land abandonment

2012-01-20T23:59:00.001+01:00

In a new article published in the journal Landscape Ecology, members of the ECO-LAND lab led by Elena Lopez-Zozaya have analysed how landscape history and the pattern of recent fires determines the distribution dynamics of early succesional bird species in Mediterranean landscapes driven by land abandonment of less productive areas and an increase in wildﬁre impact.

More specifically, the team tested the hypothesis that ﬁres occurred in recent decades drive the pattern of expansion of early-successional, open-habitat bird species by aiding in the process of colonisation of newly burnt areas. The results suggest that land use changes in recent decades have produced a shift in the relative importance of habitats acting as reservoirs for open-habitat bird species dynamics in Mediterranean areas. Before the middle of the twentieth century species’ reservoirs were probably constituted by relatively static open habitats (grassland and farmland), whereas afterwards they likely consist of a shifting mosaic of habitat patches where ﬁre plays a key role as connectivity provider and largely contributes to the maintenance of species persistence.

The study was carried out in Catalonia (NE Spain) and selected 44 burnt sites occurring between 2000 and 2005 to model colonisation patterns under different assumptions of potential colonisers’ sources and evaluated the colonisation estimates with empirical data on six bird species especially collected for this purpose. The team ﬁrst deﬁned three landscape scenarios serving as surrogates of potential colonisers’ sources: open-habitats created by ﬁre, shrublands and farmlands.

The we used a parameter derived from a functional connectivity metric to estimate species colonization dynamics on the selected sites by each particular scenario.To finally, evaluate our colonisation estimates with the species occurrence in the studied locations by using generalized linear mixed models. The occurrence of the focal species on the newly burnt sites was signiﬁcantly related to the connectivity patterns described by both the recent ﬁre history and the other open-habitat types generated by a different type of disturbance.

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Impacte històric del foc a nivell de paisatge sobre la distribucions de d’ocells d’hàbitats oberts

En un article recent publicat a la revista Landscape Ecology, membres del laboratori ECO-LAND , encapçalats per Elena López-Zozaya, han analitzat com la història del paisatge i el patró d’incendis recent determina la dinàmica de distribució de dels usos tradicionals i els incendis forestals.

Més específicament, l'equip va testar la hipòtesi que els incendis ocorreguts en les últimes dècades determinen el patró de colonització d'espècies d'aus de hàbitats oberts. Els resultats suggereixen que els canvis d'ús del sòl en les últimes dècades han produït un canvi en la importància relativa de la tipologia d'hàbitats que actuen com a reservoris d'espècies obert hàbitat. Abans de mitjans dels segle XX, les espècies estaben probablement determinades per la distribució d’hàbitats oberts de caràcter relativament estable (pastures i terres de cultiu), mentre que l’actualitat el mosaic canviant de taques d'hàbitat derivats del foc juga un paper clau en la persistència de les espècies.

Zozaya, E.L., Brotons, L. & Saura, S. (2012) Recent fire history and connectivity patterns determine bird species distribution dynamics in landscapes dominated by land abandonment. Landscape Ecology, in press.

New article: Modelling bird species distribution change in fire prone Mediterranean landscapes.

2012-01-15T18:26:00.002+01:00

In this new article published in the journal Ecography, ECO-LAND members lab, in collaboration with Andrew Fall and Marie-Josée Fortin, present the development of new tools to model the distribution changes of species in dynamic landscapes driven by perturbations such as fire. These developments are framed in the context of the projects BIOPRED, MONTES and SCALES.

The modelling approach links the fire landscape model MEDFIRE and a spatially explicit population model accounting for dispersal constraints and population processes.

Species distribution models (SDMs) have traditionally been founded on the assumption that species distributions are in equilibrium with environmental conditions and that these species–environment relationships can be used to estimate species responses to environmental changes. Insight into the validity of this assumption can be obtained from comparing the performance of correlative species distribution models with more complex hybrid approaches accounting for mismatches between habitat suitability and species occupancy patterns.

Here we compared the ability of correlative SDMs and hybrid models, which can accommodate non-equilibrium situations arising from dispersal constraints, to reproduce the distribution dynamics of the
ortolan bunting Emberiza hortulana in highly dynamic, early successional, fire driven Mediterranean landscapes. Whereas, habitat availability was derived from a correlative statistical SDM, occupancy was modelled using a hybrid approach combining a grid-based, spatially-explicit population model that explicitly included bird dispersal with the correlative model.

We compared species occupancy patterns under the equilibrium assumption and different scenarios of species dispersal capabilities. To evaluate the predictive capability of the different models, we used independent species data collected in areas affected to different degree by fires. In accordance with the view that disturbance leads to a disparity between the suitable habitat and the occupancy patterns of the ortolan bunting, our results indicated that hybrid modelling approaches were superior to correlative models in predicting species spatial dynamics. Furthermore, hybrid models that incorporated short dispersal distances were more likely to reproduce the observed changes in ortolan bunting distribution patterns, suggesting that dispersal plays a key role in limiting the colonization of recently burnt areas.

We conclude that SDMs used in a dynamic context can be significantly improved by using combined hybrid modelling approaches that explicitly account for interactions between key ecological constraints such as dispersal and habitat suitability that drive species response to environmental changes.

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Modelització dinàmica de la distribució d’espècies en paisatges afectats pel foc

En aquest nou article publicat a la revista Ecography, membres d’ECO-LAND, en col.laboració amb Andrew Fall i Marie-Josée Fortin, presenten el desenvolupament de noves eines per modelitzar els canvis en la disribució de les espècies en paisatges dinàmics afectats pels grans incendis forestals. Aquests desenvolupaments s’han dut a terme en el marc dels projectes BIOPRED, MONTES and SCALES.

Aquest article és el primer del grup que utilitza el model de dinàmica de paisatge i incendis forestals (MEDFIRE) i enllaça els seus resultats and models poblacionals espacialment explíctis en els que s’inclouen procesos poblacionals i les limitacions que la dispersió imposa a la colonització de nous hàbitats per part de les espècies.

Brotons L, De Cáceres M, Fall A, Fortin MJ (2012) Incorporating species dispersal and landscape dynamics to the modeling of bird species distribution changes in fire prone mediterranean landscapes. Ecography, in press.

New article: Climatic debt in birds and butterflies at a European scale

2012-01-11T00:27:00.001+01:00

In a new article published in Nature Climate Change, an international team of researchers including Lluís Brotons, Sergi Herrando (ICO) and Constanstí Stefanescu (Museu Granollers) has analysed the lags between climate changes and biological responses (climatic debts) in birds and butterflies in Europe.

The results showed that changes in community composition are rapid but different between birds and butterflies and equivalent to a 37 and 114 km northward shift in bird and butterfly communities, respectively. The results also indicated that during the same period, the northward shift in temperature in Europe was even faster, so that the climatic debts of birds and butterflies correspond to a 212 and 135 km lag behind climate. The findings indicate both that birds and butterflies do not keep up with temperature increase and the accumulation of different climatic debts for these groups at national and continental scales.

Climate changes have profound effects on the distribution of numerous plant and animal species. However, whether and how different taxonomic groups are able to track climate changes at large spatial scales is still unclear. In this study, the climatic debt accumulated by bird and butterfly communities was measured and compared at an European scale over two decades (1990–2008). The team quantified the yearly change in community composition in response to climate change for 9,490 bird and 2,130 butterfly communities distributed across Europe.

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El deute climàtic en ocells i papallones

La prestigiosa revista del grup Nature ha publicat un article que revela que, durant les dues darreres dècades, la distribució de les comunitats d’ocells i de papallones a escala europea ha estat responent de forma descompassada a l’escalfament global. Aquest fet ha provocat un deute climàtic que posa en perill aquestes comunitats. A l’article hi han participat, el Dr. Lluís Brotons, investigador del Centre Tecnològic Forestal de Catalunya i el Dr. Constantí Stefanescu, del Museu de Granollers de Ciències Naturals, ambdós investigadors associats del CREAF, juntament amb el Dr. Sergi Herrando, investigador de l’Institut Català d’Ornitologia.

Els resultats de l’estudi mostren que, entre el 1990 i el 2008, la temperatura mitjana europea s’ha desplaçat cap al nord 249 km. Per mantenir-se en unes condicions climàtiques semblants les espècies s’haurien hagut de moure els mateixos kilòmetres en el mateix període de temps. Tot i això, aquest estudi internacional revela que, en promig, les comunitats d’ocells a Europa s’haurien mogut cap el nord només 37 km, mentre que les papallones ho haurien fet tan sols 114 km. Per tant, els investigadors alerten que les aus i les papallones no estan seguint les passes del canvi climàtic a una velocitat suficient i que s’està acumulant un decalatge que els científics anomenen “deute climàtic”.

L’estudi demostra que el deute climàtic en ambdós casos és ja de centenars de kilòmetres. És a dir, que els ocells europeus viuen 212 km allunyats de les seves àrees climàtiques òptimes mentre que les papallones ho estan uns 135 km. Aquestes comunitats viuen permanentment sota estrés tèrmic i són cada cop més vulnerables a possibles amenaces.

El deute climàtic és diferent en ocells que en papallones i aquest fet té conseqüències molt greus pel funcionaments del ecosistemes. Per exemple, moltes comunitats d’ocells i papallones que abans convivien en un mateix hàbitat ara ja no coincideixen. A tall d’exemple, cal pensar que molts ocells s’alimenten d’erugues de papallones, i això podria repercutir en una menor disponibilitat de recursos per a un bon nombre d’espècies.

Per dur a terme aquest estudi els investigadors han calculat la temperatura mitjana on viu cada espècie i, a partir d’aquest valor específic i de les dades dels seguiments d’ocells i papallones, la temperatura associada a cada comunitat, el que anomenen CTI (Community Temperature Index). Analitzant el valor del CTI per a més de 10.000 àrees de mostreig de biodiversitat, des d’Escandinàvia a la conca Mediterrània, s’ha observat que aquest índex ha augmentat en el període 1990-2008 en una magnitud equivalent a uns desplaçaments cap el nord molt sorprenents. Això no només s’explica per l’arribada de noves espècies sinó també per canvis en l’abundància de les poblacions, d’acord amb els òptims tèrmics de cada espècie.

Més canvis com més al nord d’Europa

L’estudi s’ha dut a terme amb dades de Finlàndia, Suècia, el Regne Unit, els Països Baixos, la República Txeca, França i Catalunya. L’increment del CTI durant el període d’estudi és manifest a la major part de països europeus, però les dades analitzades revelen un desplaçament cap el nord molt més destacat als països escandinaus, on els efectes del canvi climàtic serien més pronunciats, que als mediterranis. En el cas concret de Catalunya, els canvis observats no arriben a ser significatius, potser simplement perquè disposem de sèries temporals de dades més curtes, però també perquè la resposta a les variacions climàtiques haurien estat d’una magnitud menor. A més, la situació es complica perquè altres factors, com ara els canvis en els usos del sòl, poden tenir efectes oposats als abans esmentats.

El paper de la societat en l’estudi de la biodiversitat

El seguiment de la biodiversitat és una tasca d’extraordinària complexitat i només uns pocs grups biològics poden ser ben estudiats. Aquest estudi ha estat possible gràcies a les dades recollides per part de milers d’aficionats als ocells i a les papallones que, de forma voluntària, han participat en els seguiments d’aquests organismes en un total de set països europeus. Dos dels projectes participants, el Seguiment d’Ocells Comuns a Catalunya (SOCC) i el Seguiment de Papallones Diürnes a Catalunya (CBMS), es duen a terme gràcies al decidit impuls del Departament de Territori i Sostenibilitat de la Generalitat de Catalunya, l’Institut Català d’Ornitologia i el Museu de Granollers de Ciències Naturals. L’estudi s’ha pogut dur a terme gràcies al suport del els projectes BIOCAT-BB i MONTES-Consolider del Ministeri de Ciència i Innovació i del projecte europeu SCALES FP7-226852.

DeVictor, V, van Swaay, C., Brereton, T., Brotons, L., Chamberlain, D., Heliölä, J., Herrando, S., Julliard, R., Kuusaari, M., Lindstrom, A., Reif, J., Roy, D.B., Schweiger,O., Settele, J., Stefanescu, C., Van Strein, A., Van Turnhout, C., Vermouzek, Z., De Vries, M.W., Wynhoff, I. & Jiguet, F. 2012. Differences in the climatic debts of birds and butterflies at a continental scale. Nature Climate Change, doi:10.1038/nclimate1347.

Offered: assistant technician position in landscape modelling and data analysis.

2012-01-07T10:52:00.000+01:00

We offer a technician position in landscape modelling and analysis of environmental data to join the Biodiversity and Landscape Ecology Lab at the Centre Tecnològic Forestal de Catalunya (CTFC) in the context of global change and its impacts on ecological systems.

Es busca tècnic/a en modelització ecològica i anàlisi de dades ambientals amb possibilitats d’incorporar-se al grup de Biodiversitat i Ecologia del Paisatge del Centre Tecnològic Forestal de Catalunya (CTFC) en l’àmbit del canvi global i els seus impactes sobre els sistemes ecològics.

Main tasks will include assistance in the development, maintenance and analyses of the data generated by the different environmental models currently being used by the group. These models are spatially explicit and include the development of landscape change and fire regime variability scenarios obtained from the MEDFIRE model. The position will be framed within the MONTES project in collaboration with the CREAF research institute. The successful candidate will also work on the writing of the model documentation and scientific articles derived from the modelling activities.

Requirements

University degree, preferably in an environmental area (Biology, Geography, Forestry) but also open to other areas (Maths, Physics, etc) when experience in environmental issues can be demonstrated.
High level programming skills. Previous experience in R statistical language will be a prerequisite. In cases of proven expertise in other languages such as C++ or Java, knowledge of statistics will be an additional merit.

Other aspects

Active involvement or experience in environmental modelling applications.
Previous experience in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and management of large data sets.
Previous experience in teamwork.
Publication record in international journals.

Working conditions

The preselected candidates will go through a personal interview including specific tests on the require skills.
Working place in Solsona and initial contract of one year with possibility of extension.
Initial test period of 30 days and salary according to the legal setting established by the CTFC.

Please send CV, reference contacts (at least 2) and a presentation letter (one page maximum) via e-mail, before January 31^st 2012 to lluis.brotons@ctfc.cat

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Tècnic en modelització del paisatge i anàlisi de dades

Les tasques a realitzar inclouen l’assistència al desenvolupament, manteniment i tractament estadístic de les dades generades en diversos processos de modelització ambiental que es treballen en el si del grup. Els models a impulsar sont espacialment explícits i inclouen el desenvolupament d’escenaris de canvi de paisatge i variabilitat en el règim d’incendis a partir del model MEDFIRE. Aquests es desenvolupen principalment en el marc del projecte MONTES en col.laboració amb el CREAF. La persona seleccionada col·laborarà en la redacció de les memòries i articles científics derivats de la utilització de les bases de dades esmentades.

Requeriments

Formació universitària, preferiblement en l’àmbit del medi ambient: Biologia, Ciències Ambientals, Geografia física, Enginyeria Forestal, però obert a d’altres àmbits (Matemàtiques, Física o altres Enginyeries) amb experiència en temes ambientals.
Coneixements alts en llenguatges de programació. Preferiblement experiència prèvia en el llenguatge estadístic R. En el cas d’expertesa contrastada en altres llenguatges de programació com C++, o java es valorarà addicionalment el coneixement o l’experiència en l’àmbit de l’estadística a nivell d’usuari.

Es valorarà positivament

Participació activa i experiència en processos de modelització ambiental.
Coneixements en Sistemes d’Informació Geogràfica (SIG) i gestió de grans bases de dades.
Experiència previa en treball en equip.
Experiència contrastada en la redacció de memòries o articles científics.

Condicions de treball

Els candidats preseleccionats es sotmetran a una prova específica i a una entrevista per part dels serveis de personal del CTFC.
Lloc de treball a Solsona amb una duració de contracte inicial d’un any amb possibilitat d’ampliació.
Període de proves de 30 dies amb sou segons conveni CTFC.

Envieu CV, contactes de referència (mínim de 2) i carta de presentació (màxim una plana) per correu electrònic, abans del 31 de gener 2012 a lluis.brotons@ctfc.cat

Post-Doc position: Conservation biology and spatial ecology in Mediterranean farmlands

2012-01-06T16:10:00.000+01:00

A grant offer is open to conduct post-doctoral research for 18 months (with the possibility of an extension) in Spain in the context of the project STEPPE-AHEAD “Steppe-land birds, agriculture practices and economic viability: towards the conservation of threatened species in humanised landscapes“ funded by Fundación General CSIC and Banco Santander. (http://www.steppeahead.com).

The main objective of the project, which is conducted together with groups from CSIC, University of Lleida and Autonomous University of Barcelona, is the conceptual development of new conservation approaches aimed at making the conservation of threatened farmland birds possible in highly humanized agricultural dominated landscapes. This project is based on the development of landscape use scenarios described by agronomic and local knowledge that will be evaluated in terms of their economic viability and their potential to host viable populations of the target threatened bird species. This approach should therefore allow guiding the implementation of specific management actions in a sound agronomic context.

The project aims at dealing with two main challenges in current conservation biology. The first is conceptual and deals with the explicit integration of human activities influencing landscapes in conservation strategies. The second is methodological and tackles the development of new modelling methods allowing the integration of key ecological processes, which determines the species distribution changes, and the comparison of impacts derived from different scenarios of future change.

The post-doc will be based at the Biodiversity and Landscape Ecology and Animal Conservation labs at the CTFC, (http://biodiversitylandscapeecologylab.blogspot.com/) and he/she is expected to coordinate the project and publish research articles in high-ranking journals.

Requirements:

PhD. in ecology, agronomy, geography or similar.
Excellent publication record.
Previous experience in biological conservation topics, preferably regarding ornithology.
Expertise in dynamic spatial modelling (statistical, landscape and/or process based models).
Contrasted capacity to lead work and team up with other researchers.
Knowledge of Spanish/Catalan language appreciated.

Working conditions

Equivalent to the Juan de la Cierva Programme of the Spanish “Ministerio de ciencia e innovación” (http://web.micinn.es).
Working place in Solsona (120 km north of Barcelona, Spain), Forest Technology Center of Catalonia (CTFC, http://www.ctfc.cat).

Send CV, a copy of relevant papers published, a motivation letter (one page maximum) and the contacts of two reference researchers, via e-mail before January 31^st 2012: to lluis.brotons@ctfc.cat

Phd candidates welcome: Fire and landscape modelling in the Mediterranean

2012-01-05T17:27:00.001+01:00

We welcome PhD candidates interested in starting a thesis on the impacts of climate and land use changes on fire regimes and landscape changes in Spain in the context of the project “BIONOVEL: Assessing the impact on biodiversity of uncertain and novel future landscapes under different drivers of global change in a Mediterranean region “ within the Biodiversity and landscape Ecology lab (http://biodiversitylandscapeecologylab.blogspot.com/) and the MONTES project lead by CREAF (http://www.creaf.uab.es/montes/).

The present project has as a main objective to develop an ecological and modelling framework that accounts for uncertainty in the study of the responses of Mediterranean ecosystem to a wide range of environmental pressures. In a context of global change, the present challenge is to develop approaches that allow the prediction of species responses to further change and develop new paradigms of planning and management guidelines compatible with the novel ecosystems concept. However, the prediction of species responses such as shifts in species distribution patterns is not an easy task as many interacting factors constraint current species distributions and are likely to do so in the future. The integration of these elements in modelling platforms and methodological approaches to reproduce the responses of landscapes and species distributions to variability in the perturbation regime is a step forward (http://sites.google.com/site/medfireproject/). The BIONOVEL project will allow the integration of ecological relevant processes that allow the generation of scenarios of future biodiversity changes, at local and regional scales, in areas with environmental pressures dominated by climate change, land use change (i.e. abandonment or urbanization) and fire disturbances.

Requirements:

Degree in biology, forestry, geography or similar.
Excellent academic (above 2.0 in 1to 4 Spanish academic evaluation system)
Academic qualifications that allow starting a doctoral degree
Experience in GIS and remote sensing. Programming skills preferred.
Contrasted capacity to lead work and team up with other researchers.
Knowledge of Catalan language appreciated.

Working conditions

Candidates need to have a competitive profile for a Spanish doctoral fellowship as we would support the applicant for the next FPU fellowship. It is convenient to check requirements in previous announcents (Formación Profesorado Universitario Fellowship Program)
Working place in Solsona (120 km north of Barcelona, Spain), Forest Technology Center of Catalonia (CTFC).

Interested candidates should send their CV, a motivation letter (one page maximum) and the contacts of two reference researchers, via e-mail before January 31^st 2012 to: lluis.brotons@ctfc.cat

New article: Biogeography of species richness gradients.

2012-01-03T23:56:00.001+01:00

In a new article published in Biological reviews, Lluís Brotons together with other CREAF researchers led by Jofre Carnicer, shed light on how adaptive traits contribute to the emergence and maintenance of species richness gradients.

Empirical studies show that geographical clines in population parameters and measures of demographic variability are frequent along latitudinal and altitudinal gradients. Demographic variability often increases at the extremes of regional species richness gradients and contributes to shape these gradients. Available studies suggest that adaptive traits significantly influence demographic dynamics, and set the limits of species distributions. Traits related to thermal tolerance, resource use, phenology and dispersal seem to play a significant role.

For many traits affecting demography and/or diversification processes, complex mechanistic approaches linking genotype, phenotype and fitness are becoming progressively available. In several taxa, species can be distributed along adaptive trait continuums.

Finally, the review deals with the existence of sequences of adaptive traits in phylogenies, the interactions of adaptive traits and community context, the clinal variation of traits across geographical gradients, and the role of adaptive traits in determining the history of dispersal and diversification of clades. Overall, the available evidence suggest that the study of demographic and evolutionary mechanisms that shape species richness gradients clearly requires the explicit consideration of adaptive traits.

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Biogeografia dels gradients de riquesa d’espècies

En un nou article publicat a la revista Biological Reviews, Lluís Brotons amb altres investigadors del CREAF liderats per en Jofre Carnicer s’investiga com els trets evolutius contribueixen a l’emergència i manteniment dels gradients de riquesa d’espècies.

Per exemple, els estudis empírics suggereixen que els paramètres demogràfics mostren clines geogràfiques en paral.lel a la variabilitat en gradients latitudinals i altitudinals. La variabilitat demografica sovint augmenta en els extrems dels gradients regionals de riquesa contribuint així al manteniment d’aquests gradients.

Carnicer, J., Brotons, L. Stefanescu, C. & Peñuelas, J. (in press) Biogeography of species richness gradients: linking adaptive traits, demography and diversification. Biological Reviews.

Visit to Australian research centres

2011-11-23T01:27:00.001+01:00

New contacts and collaborations allow the ECO-LAND lab to establish a link with Australian scientists.

A research stay funded by the Catalan Government has allowed Lluís Brotons to visit Jane Elith at ACERA (Australian Centre of Excellence for Risk Analyses), located in the School of Botany at the University of Melbourne. The stay is focussing on the applications of Species Distribution Modelling (SDM) and the uncertainty issues associated to projections of SDM to future landscape changes. A international workshop on some of these issues is also scheduled.

Lluís Brotons has given two seminars on SDM applications in a Mediterranean context and contacted researchers from a number of research institutions. Contacts have been established with the Center of Excellence for Environmental Decisions, Arthur Rylah Institute and Deakin University.

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Nous contactes i col.laboracions permeten el ECOLAND establir un lligam amb investigadors Australians.

Una estada de recerca finançada pel Govern Català, ha permés Lluís Brotons visitar Jane Elith de l’ACERA (Australian Centre of Excellence for Risk Analyses), institució de la School of Botany at the University of Melbourne. Aquesta estada s’ha focalitzat en les aplicacions dels Models de Distribució d’Espècies (SDM) i en la incertesa associada a las projeccions d’aquests models en paisatges futurs. Es preveu també la participació en un workshop internacional sobre aquests temes.

Lluís Brotons ha impartit dos seminaris sobre aplicacions dels SDMs en un context Mediterrani i ha contactat investigadors de diverses institucions de recerca establertes a Melbourne: Center of Excellence for Environmental Decisions, Arthur Rylah Institute i Deakin University.

New article: Unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) and bird monitoring.

2011-11-14T05:51:00.002+01:00

In this new article published in the journal the IBIS, members from EcoLand and BAC Labs together with engineers from the Polytechnics University of Catalonia and members of SIBOC, report on the use of a small UAS to monitor temporal changes in breeding population size in a Black-headed Gull Chroicocephalus ridibundus colony.

Unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) are remote-controlled devices capable of collecting information from difficult-to-access places while minimizing disturbance. Although UAS are increasingly used in many research disciplines, their application to wildlife research remains to be explored in depth. This method makes it possible to obtain georeferenced data on nest locations without causing colony disturbance, which would not otherwise be possible via direct ground observations.

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Aparells aeris per control remot i monitoreig d’ocells

Els UAS (Unmanned Aircraft Systems) son aparells aeris dirigits per control remot,i per tant apaços d’obtenir informació de lcs de difícil accés a la vegada que es minimitza la pertorbació de l’hàbitat. Tot i que els UAS son una eina cada cop més utilitzada en diferents disciplines, la seva aplicació en el camp de la recerca en biodiversitat i seguiment de fauna no ha estat explorada en profunditat.

En aquest nou article publicat en la revista IBIS, membres dels laboratoris EcoLand i BAC, junt amb enginyers de la Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya i SIBOC, presenten els UAS com a una eina útil per al seguiment dels canvis poblacionals que succeeixen en una colònia de gavina riallera Chroicocephalus ridibundus al llarg de l’època de reproducció. Aquest mètode permet obtenir dades georeferenciades de la localització dels nius sense destorbar la colònia, el qual no seria possible mitjançant observacions directes des del terreny.

Blog SIBOC: http://www.siboc-uav.blogspot.com/

Sarda-Palomera, F., Bota, G., Viñolo, C., Pallarés, O., Sazatornil, V., Brotons, L., Gomáriz, S. & Sarda, F. (2011). Fine-scale bird monitoring from light unmanned aircraft systems. doi: 10.1111/j.1474-919X.2011.01177.x

New article: consistency in vegetation classification

2011-11-09T04:15:00.003+01:00

A new article, resulting from a collaboration between Miquel De Cáceres (ECOLAND, CTFC) and Susan K. Wiser (Landcare Research, New Zealand) has been recently published electronically in Journal of Vegetation Science. With the aim of promoting methodological standardization in classification across countries and vegetation scientists.

The paper is centred on two ideas: (1) the need to explicitly distinguish between the conceptual activities involved in the definition of vegetation types and (2) the need to perform assignments of new vegetation observations to previously defined vegetation types in accordance with how these types were originally defined.

The authors demonstrate that their conceptual framework provides a useful tool to better understand what classification methods do. In order to manage and use classifications in a better way, vegetation scientists should produce, store and report the rules that provide consistent assignments to vegetation types.

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Consistència en la classificació de la vegetació

Un nou article, resultat de la col·laboració entre Miquel De Cáceres (ECOLAND, CTFC) i Susan K. Wiser (Landcare Research, New Zealand) ha estat recentment publicat en format electrònic a Journal of Vegetation Science. Amb la intenció de promoure l'estandardització metodològica a través de països i estudiosos de la vegetació, aquest article de discussió està centrat en dues idees principals:

(1) la necessitat de distinguir explícitament entre activitats conceptualment diferents relacionades amb la definició de tipus de vegetació.

(2) la necessitat de que la assignació de noves observacions de la vegetació a tipus predefinits de vegetació es faci d'acord amb com aquests tipus van ser originalment definits.

Els autors demostren que el seu marc conceptual proporciona una eina útil per a entendre millor el que fan els mètodes numèrics de classificació. Per tal de gestionar i utilitzar les classificacions apropiadament, els estudiosos de la vegetació haurien de produir, emmagatzemar i difondre regles que permetin una assignació consistent de noves observacions a tipus de vegetació.

De Cáceres M,Wiser S (on-line) Towards consistency in vegetation classification. Journal of Vegetation Science.

Spanish Marine protected areas and species distribution models

2011-10-19T19:44:00.002+02:00

An ECOLAND lab work contributes to the large scale establishment of marine protected areas in Spain.

The draft Ministerial Order to declare the Spanish Marine Special Protection Areas (SPAs), including information about its geographical boundaries, the main species present and the basic principles for its management it has been just released by the Spanish government.

At the root of the identification of SPAs is the LIFE Project “Important Bird Areas for seabirds (Marine IBAs) in Spain”, promoted by SEO/BirdLife. This projects aimed at using innovative spatial modelling methods to define the sites that meet the necessary conditions to ensure the favourable conservation status of seabirds and migratory birds in Spanish waters.

In the framework of this LIFE project, the ECOLAND team coordinated by Dani Villero was involved in developing the species distribution models used in the identification of Marine IBAs. The tasks involved developing seabird habitat models and contributing to shape the overall process of identifying the areas. The main outcomes of the project are available in the book entitled Important Areas for the Conservation of Seabirds in Spain.

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Exposició Pública de la proposta de ZEPAs Marines Espanyoles

Ja està enllestit l'esborrany de l'Ordre Ministerial per la que es declaren les Zones d'Especial Protecció per a les Aus (ZEPA) Marines d'Espanya, que inclou informació sobre els seus límits geogràfics, les espècies per les que són declarades i els principis bàsics per a la seva gestió. La base per a la identificació de ZEPA Marines ha estat el projecte LIFE “Àrees importants per a les aus (IBA) marines d’Espanya”, promogut per SEO/BirdLife, que defineix i delimita els llocs que compleixen les condicions necessàries per garantir l’estat de conservació favorable de les espècies d’aus marines i migratòries en aigües espanyoles.

En el marc d’aquest projecte, l’equip ECOLAND coordinat per Dani Villero va participar en la definició de la metodologia per a la identificació del IBA Marines, amb el desenvolupant models de hàbitat d’ocells marins i contribuint a perfilar el procés general d’identificació dels espais. Les principals aportacions del projecte estan recollides en el llibre titulat Àreas importantes para la conservación de las Aves marinas en España.

Valuing ecosystem services… or the economy of forest recovery after fire

2011-09-20T09:11:00.003+02:00

In recent times there is an increasing recognition of the importance of ecosystem services founded on ecological processes to society.

Carol Puerta-Piñero of the ECO-LAND lab has lead an article in the European Journal of Forest Research addressing the economic value of ecological processes behind resilience after fire related to post-fire forest resilience.

Our study suggests that the economic costs of losing ecological processes ensuring post-fire resilience are high. A change in paradigm that favours complementing active management with actions and strategies aimed at maintaining ecosystem services provided by functional and diverse forests is needed.

Ecological processes within forests provide vital ecosystem services to society, most of which depend on the persistence of tree cover that can be altered after the impact of a disturbance. The aim of the present study was to examine the role of seed dispersal and resprouting that mediate resilience to large ﬁres and evaluate the economic costs that these ecological functions provide.

We used ﬁeld data of the Spanish National Forest Inventory providing information on pre- and post-ﬁre conditions of Mediterranean Pinus spp. and Quercus forests. Then, we determined the need for restoration required and estimated the minimum pre-ﬁre densities needed to ensure adequate post-ﬁre cover. Economic valuations were assessed through three different scenarios of possible human-management actions aimed at ensuring proper post-ﬁre tree cover:

1) a pre-ﬁre management scenario evaluating the costs of planting Quercus seedlings in the understory, mimicking dispersal processes.

2) a pre-ﬁre scenario in which enrichment plantations increase densities of natural oaks.

3) a post-ﬁre scenario where the restoration is done through planting pines within the burned area.

Approximately 90% of the burned area was able to recover after ﬁre supporting the view that Mediterranean forests are resilient to ﬁre. This resilience was primarily mediated by biotic seed dispersal and posterior resprouting of tree species. These ecological functions saved between 626 and 1,326 €/ha compared to the costs of carrying out active management actions. Ensuring key ecological processes within forests increases forest resilience and recovery after ﬁre leading to a generally signiﬁcant saving of economic resources. In a perspective of increased future impact of disturbances and decrease availability of economic resources for forest management, the implications of the present study can be far reaching and extended to other forest planning exercises.

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Valuació dels serveis ecosistèmics…. o l’economis de la recuperació forestal després del foc

En els darrers temps existeix un reconeixement creixent de la importància per la societat dels serveis ecosistèmics basats en procesos ecològics.

Carol Puerta-Piñero de ECO-LAND ha liderat un article publicat al European Journal of Forest Research que tracta la quantificació del valor econòmic dels procesos ecològics en el que es fonamenta la resiliencia del bosc després dels incendis. El nostre estudi suggereix que els costos econòmics relacionats amb la pèrdua de procesos ecològics que asseguren la resiliencia post-incendi poden ser molt alts.

Cal un canvi en el paradigma que afavoreixi la complementació de la gestió activa amb accions i estratègies encaminades al manteniment dels serveis ecosistemics proporcionats per boscos diversos i funcionals.

Puerta-Piñero. C., Brotons, L., Coll, L. & González-Olabarria, J.R. in press. Valuing acorn dispersal and resprouting capacity ecological functions to ensure Mediterranean forest resilience after ﬁre. European Journal of Forest Research, DOI 10.1007/s10342-011-0557-6.

XXX International Union of Game Biologist (IUGB)

2011-09-14T09:01:00.001+02:00

ECO-LAND has contributed to the organization of the XXX International Union of Game Biologist (IUGB) and XIII Perdix Congress http://www.iugb2011.com/, which was held in Barcelona from 5th – 9th September.

The congress was organized by the University of Barcelona with 400 attendees from about 40 countries including many of the world’s leading wildlife biologists. The general topic of the congress was “Human-wildlife conflicts and peace-building strategies”.

ECO-LAND and BAC labs participated in the discussions held in the workshop about “reconciling agricultural management, small game production and biodiversity conservation: recommendations for the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reform” and contributed with oral presentations and posters providing new data about common quail (Coturnix coturnix) distribution, migration phenology and population dynamics, and giving recommendations for quail hunting management in Western Europe.

Every two years since the mid-1950’s, the IUGB has brought together international wildlife biologists, forestry scientists, veterinarians, game managers, hunters and others with an interest in game or wildlife biology. The aim of the conference is to create a bridge among scientists, wildlife managers and authorities and those studying the human dimensions of wildlife management. Perdix XIII joined the IUGB Congress series for the third time in its history.

A great variety of fauna and game wildlife can be found in agricultural and farmland systems. However those ecosystems are very sensible and suffer fast changes due to agronomic conditions and human management. The Europe 2020 CAP strategy offers a new perspective through its response to the new economic, social, environmental, climate-related and technological challenges facing our society. Thus, the CAP contributes to developing intelligent, sustainable and inclusive growth. A good understanding between farmers, hunters and landscape managers is key to provide recommendations and policy guidelines for the preservation and maintenance of agricultural ecosystems.

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ECO-LAND ha contribuït a l’organització del XXX congrés de la Unió Internacional de Biòlegs de la Caça (IUGB) i XIII Congrés Perdix http://www.iugb2011.com/ que es va celebrar a Barcelona del 5 al 9 de setembre. El congrés va ser organitzat per la Universitat de Barcelona i hi van assistir prop de 400 persones de 40 països diferents. El tema principal del congrés va ser "els conflictes home-fauna i les estratègies de reconciliació".

Cada dos anys, des de mitjans de la dècada dels 50, la IUGB reuneix biòlegs, científics forestals, veterinaris, gestors de caça, caçadors i altres parts interessades en la biologia de la caça. L’objectiu de la conferència és crear un pont entre els científics, els gestors de fauna, l’administració i tots aquells que estudien la gestió de la fauna silvestre.

Els laboratoris ECO-LAND i BAC del CTFC van participar en diferents presentacions orals, pòsters i workshops relacionats amb la gestió cinegètica en ambients agrícoles, per tal de discutir recomanacions a aportar a la nova política agrària europea (PAC).

BiodivERsA project: FARMLAND Heterogeneity and ecosystem services in farmland landscapes

2011-09-13T09:21:00.001+02:00

A new project participated by ECO-LAND lab has been one of the selected by the BiodivERsA European Joint Call 2011.

The project FARMLAND, European Network on Farmland heterogeneity, Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services is coordinated by Jean-Louis MARTIN (CNRS) and involves partners from Germany, France, Spain, the UK and Canada.

FARMLAND is an international research program aimed at addressing questions regarding the role of spatial heterogeneity on biodiversity and ecosystem services.

Agricultural landscapes occupy 40% of the available land area, and as such play an important role in conserving biodiversity. Farmland biodiversity makes an important contribution to agricultural production by providing ecosystem services such as crop pollination and biological control of crop pests. In many regions farm fields are becoming ever larger, and many agricultural regions are now dedicated to the production of a small number of crop types. What are the effects of these changes in farmland pattern on farmland biodiversity and the ecosystem services important for agricultural production? Are there policies which, if followed, would improve biodiversity and ecosystem services in farmlands without compromising agricultural production?

Previous work has demonstrated that agricultural landscapes which contain significant areas of semi-natural lands have higher biodiversity and better ecosystem services than farmlands with less semi-natural lands. These results have led to policies where farmers are paid to leave semi-natural field margins or insert semi-natural strips into crop fields. Such policies require taking crop area out of production. There are many situations where this may not be feasible. It has been suggested that, in addition to the area of semi-natural habitats, the spatial heterogeneity of the cropped lands may be positively related to biodiversity and provision of ecosystem services. If this is true, then it may be possible to develop new policies for agriculture that could restore biodiversity and associated ecosystem services by increasing farmland heterogeneity, without reducing cropped area. The aim of FARMLAND is to test this idea and to help develop such policies.

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Un nou projecte participat pel laboratori ECO-LAND ha estat seleccionat en el marc del programa Europeu BiodivERsA 2011.

El projecte FARMLAND, Xarxa europea sobre l’heterogeneitat, biodiversitat i serveis ecosistèmics en zones agrícoles està coordinat per Jean Louis Martin (CNRS) i involucra partners d’Alemania, França, Espanya, el Regne Unit i el Canada.

FARMLAND és un projecte de recerca internacional amb l’objectiu d’investigar el paper de l’heterogeneitat espacial en els patrons de biodiversitat agrícola i els serveis ecosistèmics que aquests espais proporcionen.

Workshop: Ecological model integration to predict ecosystem responses to global change

2011-08-30T09:41:00.001+02:00

From August 16th-18th, ECO-LAND was involved in the organisation of a workshop on ecosystem model integration held at the Université de Québec a Montreal (UQAM) under the umbrella of the recent collaboration between the CTFC and the CEF. The workshop was held in the context of the FONCER project on the modelling of complex forest ecosystems lead by Christian Messier with the participation of two CTFC researchers, Lluís Brotons and Lluís Coll.

The main aim of the workshop was to discuss general constraints and suggest guidelines for the development of integrated models of ecosystem and biodiversity responses to global change.

Prediction of ecosystem and biodiversity responses to global change is becoming a central challenge in ecology and going beyond its traditional aim (i.e. gathering insights in what are the processes behind spatial and temporal patterns of ecosystems) to become a central tool to address human wellbeing.

The aim of predicting biological systems at different scales of organisation has seen a rapid and broad development over the last decades in term of modelling approaches aiming at the spatial and temporal projections of ecosystem outcomes.This trend is apparent in different disciplines handling biological entities from forestry and geography to conservation biology, ecology and complex system science leading to boundaries behind all these disciplines becoming more a more blurred. In the last years, a number of reviews on the issue of hybrid or metamodelling have been carried out addressing this trend and outlining the main challenges and obstacles ahead (references attached to this doc).

All the reviews outline the trend towards increasing model complexity and the dangers derived from adding to much complexity into model building. In the light of anticipating global change impacts on ecological communities spatially explicit projections in the context of scenarios of prevailing impact drivers are becoming a crucial tool with an increasing role in decision making processes at the management and policy levels.

Therefore, models are going to become more complex and different disciplines and modelling approaches are going to merge. Challenges of model integration are methodological (implementation, hybridization, ecoinformatics...) as well as in the ability to collaborate and transfer knowledge across disciplines.

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Durant els darrers 16-18 d’agost, ECO-LAND ha estat involucrat en l’organtizació d’un workshop sobre modelització ecosistèmica integrada celebrat a la Universite de Québec a Montreal (UQAM) sota el paraigues de les recents col.laboracions entre el CTFC i el CEF. El workshop està organitzar en el context del projecte FONCER sobre la modelització de sistemes forestals complexes dirigit per Christian Messier i on participen dos investigadors del CTFC, Lluís Brotons i Lluís Coll.

El principal objectiu del workshop va ser la discussió sobre les problemàtiques principals que aparèixen en el desenvolupament d’aquest models integrats que pretenen anticipar els possibles impactes del canvi globla sobre la biodiversitat.

New article: Tipping points and bird community shifts in response to fire in Mediterranean forests

2011-07-21T19:52:00.002+02:00

Mediterranean forests are highly resilient to fires, showing a rapid recovery after disturbance. However, as shown by a recent article published in the journal ARDEA and led by Elena Lopez-Zozaya, in some cases tree regeneration of pre fire dominant tree species fails. This leads to radical changes in landscape composition.

Overall, their results suggest that large fires affecting non-direct regenerating forest types lead to a new and radically different mosaic landscape offering new opportunities to bird species with unfavourable European conservation status.

We evaluated the impact of landscape changes on the conservation value of bird species using the new landscape arising from non-direct regeneration after a fire. They used data from a large fire that occurred in central Catalonia (NE Spain) in 1998. The fire affected about 26,000 ha of a land mosaic mainly covered by Black Pine Pinus nigra forests and farmland dominated by cereal crops.

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Canvis en les comunitats de aus i punts de non retorn en l’evolució dels boscos de pinassa Mediterranis

El bosc mediterrani és molt resilient al foc, es a dir, té una elevada capacitat de regeneració desprès del pas de la pertorbació. Malgrat això, en alguns casos, la regeneració directa no es porta a terme i es produeixen importants canvis en la composició del paisatge.

En un nou article, publicat a la revista ARDEA, Elena L. Zozaya, Lluís Brotons i Sara Vallecillo, van avaluar el impacte dels canvis en el paisatge en el valor de conservació de les espècies d’aus, utilitzant el nou paisatge derivat de la regeneració no directa desprès d’un incendi.

Es van utilitzar dades d’un incendi que va tenir lloc a la Catalunya central al 1998. El foc va afectar 26,000 ha d’un paisatge cobert per pinassa (Pinus nigra) i zones agrícoles de cereal. Els resultats suggereixen que els grans incendis que afecten un bosc que no té capacitat de regeneració desprès del foc, produeixen un paisatge nou i radicalment diferent que ofereix noves oportunitats a espècies d’ocells amb un estatus de conservació desfavorable a nivell Europeu.

Zozaya E.L., Brotons L. & Vallecillo S. (2011) Bird community responses to vegetation heterogeneity following non-direct regeneration of Mediterranean forests after fire. ARDEA 99 (1): 73 - 84.

New course: Introduction to WinBUGS for ecologists organised by the Institut Català d’Ornitologia

2011-06-28T23:00:00.001+02:00

A new course on bayesian approach to regression, ANOVA and related statistical analyses will be held in Barcelona 12-16 december 2011.

The course is organised by the Institut Català d’Ornitologia (ICO) with Marc Kéry (Swiss Ornithological Institute) and Viviana Ruiz- Gutiérrez (Laboratory of Ornithology, Cornell University, USA) as main instructors.The course will be based on the book by Marc Kéry an Introduction to WinBUGS for Ecologists.

Bayesian analyses are increasingly used in biodiversity monitoring and offer an appealing approach to the analyses of temporal data when detectability needs to be taken into account. ICO and ECO-LAND collaborate with the Museu de Granollers in the analyses of monitoring data within the project “Bioindicators of global change from large scale bird and butterfly monitoring programs”. The course on WinBUGS will be part of the activities organised in the context of this project.

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Un nou curs sobre l’aproximació bayesiana a la regressió, ANOVA i altres anàlisis estadístiques es celebrarà a Barcelona els propers 12-16 de desembre 2011.

El curs està organitzat per l'Institut Català d'Ornitologia (ICO), amb Marc Kery (Swiss Institut d'Ornitologia) i Viviana Ruiz-Gutiérrez (Laboratorid'Ornitologia de Cornell University, EUA) com a profressors instructors. El curs es basarà en el llibre de Marc Kery ”Una introducció a WinBUGS per ecòlegs”.

Anàlisi bayesià s'utilitza cada cop amb més freqüència en el seguiment de la biodiversitat i resulta especialment atractiu per a l'anàlisi de dades temporals en els que cal tenir en compte la detectabilitat. ICO i el grup ECO-LAND col.laboren amb el Museu de Granollers en les anàlisis de dades de monitoratge d’ocells i papallones en el marc del projecte "Bioindicadors dels canvis globals a partir dels programes de monitoratge a gran escala d'aus i papallones". El curs sobre WinBUGS serà part de les activitats organitzades en el marc d'aquest projecte.

PhD defence: Josep Rost (Universitat de Girona)

2011-06-22T00:34:00.001+02:00

Josep Rost defended his PhD thesis on June 28th, 11 A.M. in the Aula Magna, Sciences Faculty, University of Girona.

The effect of post-fire management on bird fauna and seed dispersal by frugivorous bird species. (pdf)

This thesis has been carried out in the framework of the DINDIS and BIOPRED projects coordinated by ECO-LAND.

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Josep Rost va llegir la seva tesi doctoral el proper dia 28 de juny a les 11 A.M. a l’Aula Magna de la Facultat de Ciències de la Unviersitat de Girona.

L'efecte de la gestió forestal post-incendi sobre l'avifauna i la dispersió de llavors per ocells frugívors. (pdf)

La tesi s’ha dut a terme en el marc dels projectes DINDIS i BIOPRED coordinats ECO-LAND.

Involvement in the long term ecological research LTER programme

2011-06-19T00:44:00.001+02:00

ECO-LAND gets involved into the LTER programme through the TREEBIO project in Aigüestortes.

ECO-LAND members together with other researchers at the CTFC took part in the LTER Spain meeting that was held 16-17th June in Collserola. Magda Pla from the Remote Sensing LABTAG group will act as representative of the group promoting long term monitoring by means of remote sensing tools.

The international network of long-term ecological research (LTER) was established in 1993 with a mission to understand how global ecosystems and provide solutions to current and future environmental problems. A network of networks that includes more than 30 countries have established national networks LTER (Long-Term Ecological Research).

Spanish LTERNetwork (LTER-Spain) consists of a total of 10 sites, 4 of them in National Parks - Doñana, Sierra Nevada, Aigüestortes and Atlantic Islands, where ecological research programs are well established, and besides the Park Collserola (in the metropolitan area of Barcelona), Parque Natural BaixaLimia - Xurés (in Orense, bordering Portugal) and 4 additional sites that comprise the Environmental Observatories Network of Galicia (Roag).

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ECO-LAND s'involucra en el programa LTER a través del projecte TREEBIO a Aigüestortes.

ECO-LAND, juntament amb altres investigadors del CTFC ha participat en la reunió de LTER Espanya, que es va dur a terme 16 i 17 de juny a Collserola. Magda Pla del Grup de Teledetecció LABTAG actuarà com a representant del group de monitorització a llarg termini per mitjà d'instruments de teledetecció.

La xarxa internacional d'investigacions ecològiques a llarg termini (Ilter)es va establir el 1993 amb la missió de comprendre el funcionament delsecosistemes globals i aportar solucions als problemes ambientalsactuals i futurs. És una xarxa de xarxes que agrupa més de 30 païsosque tenen establertes xarxes nacionals LTER (Long-Term Ecological Research).

La xarxa espanyola de LTER (LTER-Espanya) es compon d'un total de 10 llocs: 4 d'ells en Parcs Nacionals -Doñana, Sierra Nevada, Aigüestortes i Illes Atlàntiques-on existeixen programes d'investigació ecològica ben establerts-, a més del Parc deCollserola (a l'àrea metropolitana de Barcelona), el Parc Natural Baixa Limia - Xurés (a Ourense, limítrof amb Portugal) i 4 llocs addicionals que conformen la Xarxa d'Observatoris Ambientals de Galícia (Roag).

Novel models workshop: Exploring the frontiers of ecological modelling

2011-05-31T11:02:00.003+02:00

ECO-LAND attended the Novel Model workshop, 6-10th June in Lisbon, Portugal. In this workshop, organised by DIVERSITAS, present frontiers in (ecological) modelling of biodiversity were identified. The main objective of the workshop was to discuss the state of the art of methods currently applied to derive projections of global change impacts on biodiversity at different spatial scales.

DIVERSITAS is an international research programme aiming at integrating biodiversity science for human well-being. The workshop is included within the bioDISCOVERY core program, aimed at providing a framework to the scientific community to enable them to make breakthroughs in assessing, monitoring, understanding and predicting biodiversity change.

Work within this new initiative contributes to Focus 3 of the bioDISCOVERY scientific strategy. Improving future biodiversity predictions. Models can be used to integrate different levels and aspects of biodiversity, and interpolate observations across space, time and taxa. Models need to include new types of data (e.g. traits or functional types), and interactions between species to more accurately predict ecosystem responses to global change. Incorporation of biotic interactions into ecological models in particular is a challenge, and presents the frontier of modelling. Aim of this "brain storming" initiative is to facilitate the development of a new generation of models that combine both good representations of biodiversity and of ecosystem functioning.

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Seminari sobre nous models i biodiversitat

ECO-LAND assistirà a la reunió sobre nous models, els propers 6-10 de juny a Lisboa, Portugal. En aquest seminari, organitzat per DIVERSITAS, s’examinaran les fronteres actuals de la modelització ecològica de la biodiversitat. També es discutiran nous camins que permetin modelitzar les xarxes ecològiques i que permetin integrar diferents tipus de models ecològics. Finalment, es pretenen desenvolupar estandards i protocols que permetin avançar en l’aplicació pràctica d’aquest tipus de modelització.

DIVERSITAS és un programa de recerca internacional que pretèn integrar la recerca en biodiversitat per un major benestar humà. El present seminari s’inclou en un dels programes centrals de DIVERSITAS, bioDISCOVERY.http://www.diversitas-international.org/

Collaborations: Centre d’Étude de la Forêt (Québec)

2011-05-24T10:23:00.001+02:00

Our links with the Centre d’Étude de la Forêt (CEF, Québec, Canada) have been strengthened during these last weeks and a collaboration agreement has been signed between the CEF and two main forest research centers in Catalonia CTFC and CREAF.

The bonds with the CEF will be visualized in the near future through the collaboration of Lluís Brotons and Lluís Coll (from the FIDBOSC group) in the new interuniversitary and interdisciplinary training program in Forest Complexity Modelling CREATE lead by Dr. Christian Messier from CEF.

Furthermore, and thanks to a travel grant from the Catalan Government, Lluís Brotons, Núria Aquilué and Miquel de Cáceres will spend two months at the CEF headquarters at the Université de Québec a Montreal (UQAM) this summer, together with Dr. Christian Messier and Andrew Fall to advance on landscape modelling issues in a context of fire and global change (MEDFIRE model).

The strength of the CEF lies in its integration of scientific information necessary to conceive strategies and furnish practical knowledge that will permit the shift from management practices that are currently employed in Quebec forestry to ecosystem-based management of provincial forest lands. Forest management in the 21st century must also take into account numerous emerging phenomena (biological invasions, climate change, habitat fragmentation).

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Col.laboracions: Centre d’Étude de la Forêt (Québec)

Els nostres lligams amb Centre d’Étude de la Forêt (CEF, Québec, Canada) s’han enfortit en aquestes darreres setmanes gràcies a un conveni entre el CEF i les dos principals institucions en recerca forestal catalanes, el CTFC i el CREAF.

La força del CEF rau en la integració de la informació científica necessària per concebre les estratègies i coneixements pràctics que permetin el canvi de pràctiques de gestió que estan actualment empleats en el sector forestal del Quebec a la gestió ecosistèmica dels boscos de la província. La gestió forestal en el segle 21 també ha de tenir en compte nombrosos fenòmens emergents (les invasions biològiques, canvi climàtic, la fragmentació de l'hàbitat).

Els lligams en curs amb el CEF es visualitzaran en un futur proper a través de la col.laboració de Lluís Brotons i Lluís Coll (del grup FIDBOSC) en el nou programa de formació interuniversitària i interdisciplinària sobre modelització forestal complexa CREATE liderat pel Dr Christian Messier del CEF.

Gràcies a una subvenció del Govern català, Lluís Brotons, Aquilué Núria i Miquel de Càceres passaran dos mesos a la seu del CEF a la Universitat de Quebec a Mont-real (UQAM) aquest estiu, juntament amb el Drs Christian Messier i Andrew Fall per avançar en la modelització paisatge en un context d'incendis i el canvi global (model MEDFIRE).

Book release: Catalan Winter Bird Atlas 2006-2009

2011-05-19T12:38:00.002+02:00

The Catalan winter bird Atlas 2006-2009 is out and was officially presented May 18th at the Pedrera building in Barcelona.

Thanks to the work of over 1,000 contributors, and published by Lynx Edicions and Institut Català d'Ornitologia, this Catalan Winter Bird Atlas 2006-2009 is one of the most important collective contributions to the knowledge of biodiversity in Catalonia to date and becomes a reference reaching far beyond its limited territorial scope.

A total of 318 bird species were observed in Catalonia during the study period, of which 206 wintered regularly and in relatively high numbers. The ECO-LAND lab has been involved in many aspects of this book, being specially relevant the production of quantitative maps derived from spatial modelling techniques.

Ornithological atlases are often one of the best ways of improving knowledge and management of a country’s avifauna. To date two breeding-bird atlases have been published in Catalonia (1984 and 2004), but a winter atlas was lacking, despite the importance of this season for many local breeding species and migrants from central and northern Europe. The distributions and abundances of these species are often quite different from those of the breeding period and in some cases change from one winter to another.

All the information gathered is depicted in great detail on maps with a resolution of up to 250x250 m; as well, for the first time, data from monitoring projects operating since 1972 have been collated and analyzed. From the extraordinary abundance of Blackcaps in olive groves to the presence of Wallcreepers in Mediterranean limestone mountains, each and every one of the birds discussed in this book provides surprises that will fascinate nature lovers as much as wildlife managers.

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L’Atles dels ocells de Catalunya a l’hivern 2006-2009

L’Altes dels ocells de Catalunya a l’hivern 2006-2009 ja és aquí va ser oficialment presentat el 18 de Maig a l’edifici de la Pedrera de Barcelona!

Amb la participació de més de 1.000 col·laboradors, i publicat per Lynx Edicions i l’Institut Català d'Ornitologia, l’Atles dels ocells de Catalunya a l’hivern 2006-2009 representa un dels majors èxits col·lectius en matèria de coneixement de la biodiversitat del nostre país i alhora constitueix un referent més enllà de les nostres fronteres. Un total de 318 espècies d’ocells han estat observades a Catalunya durant el període d’estudi, de les quals 206 hi han hivernat de forma prou abundant i regular. El grup ECO-LAND ha estat involucrat en diverses facetes d’aquest llibre, destacant la producció dels mapes quantitatius derivats de l’aplicació de tècniques de modelització espacial de la biodiversitat.

Els atles ornitològics solen ser una de les eines més precises per millorar al coneixement i la gestió de l’avifauna d’un país. Fins ara, Catalunya disposava de dos atles d’ocells nidificants (publicats el 1984 i el 2004), però quedava pendent l’elaboració d’un que tractés els ocells del període hivernal, moment de l’any crucial tant per a moltes de les espècies nascudes aquí, com per aquelles que procedeixen del centre o nord d’Europa.

La distribució i abundància dels ocells durant l’hivern és, sovint, ben diferent de la del període reproductor i, en determinats casos, molt canviant d’un hivern a un altre. Tota aquesta informació es mostra amb un nivell de detall molt alt, amb mapes de fins a 250x250 m de resolució, i, per primera vegada, es reuneixen i analitzen dades dels seguiments temporals que s’estaven recopilant des de l’any 1972.

Des de l’extraordinària abundància dels tallarols de casquet als oliverars a la presència del pela-roques a les serres calcàries mediterrànies, tots i cadascun dels ocells d’aquest llibre revelen sorpreses que fascinaran tant als amants de la natura com per als gestors del medi natural.

New article: Modelling species’ climatic distributions under habitat constraints

2011-05-11T09:11:00.001+02:00

Species distribution models are the best tool to increase knowledge on the future and past of species distributions. To date, research on distribution modelling has mainly focused on model performance at relatively small sample sizes and the question of “how much data is enough” has not been investigated thoroughly. Moreover, insufficient attention has been paid to the challenges of modelling widespread generalist species.

In this new article, Francesc Sardà-Palomera and David Vieites (MNCN, CSIC) explore the ability of models to predict, from a climatic point of view, a precise distribution of a widespread farmland bird species, the common quail Coturnix coturnix, and which variables contribute most to the different models based on different sample sizes.

The common quail is a climatically widespread farmland specialist bird with a wellknown distribution in the Iberian Peninsula. Therefore, its current real distribution can be finely mapped. Recent atlas data and high-resolution climate layers have been used to model the climatic distribution of this species. Next, the obtained predictive maps are compared with the real distribution of the species. Precise information about underestimation and overestimation of model predictions at different sample sizes was obtained. An increase in sample size allowed the predicted distribution to approach the current real distribution, but unbalanced the climatic prediction. This is because the distribution of occurrences is mostly determined by habitat, which depends more on agricultural factors and less on climate. Modelling the climatic distribution of widespread species while ignoring habitat constraints could lead to a non-equilibrium scenario where obtained predictions may not be reliable.

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Modelització climàtica de la distribució d’espècies amb restriccions d’hàbitat: el cas de la guatlla Coturnix coturnix

Els models de distribució són la millor eina per obtenir coneixement sobre la distribució futura i passada de les especies. Fins ara, la recerca sobre modelització de la distribució d’espècies s'ha centrat principalment en el rendiment dels models en mides de mostra relativament petites, mentre que la qüestió sobre "quina és la quantitat de dades suficient" no s'ha tractat a fons. D'altra banda, no s'ha prestat suficient atenció als repte que suposa la modelització d’espècies generalistes que presenten una distribució àmplia.

En aquest nou article, Francesc Sardà-Polomera i David Vieites (MNCN, CSIC) exploren la capacitat d’aquests models per predir, des d'un punt de vista climàtic, la distribució precisa d'un ocell d’hàbitats agrícoles però amb un nínxol climàtic molt ampli, la guatlla Coturnix coturnix, i quines són les variables que més contribueixen als diferents models basats en diferents mides de mostra.

La guatlla és una au àmpliament estesa des d’un punt de vista climàtic , però especialitzada en habitar ambients agrícoles, i la seva distribució és ben coneguda a la Península Ibèrica. Així doncs, es poden crear mapes detallats de la seva distribució real actual. S’han utilitzat dades d’atles recents i capes climàtiques d’alta resolució per tal de modelar la distribució climàtica d'aquesta espècie, i s’han comparat els mapes predictius obtinguts amb la distribució real de l’espècie. A partir d’aquí s’ha pogut obtenir informació precisa sobre la subestimació i la sobreestimació de les prediccions dels models amb diferents mides de mostra. Un augment en la mida de la mostra aproxima la distribució predita a la distribució real actual, però esbiaixa la predicció climàtica. Això es deu a que la distribució de les presències de l’espècie està determinada sobretot per l’hàbitat, que depèn més de decisions agronòmiques i socials que no pas de factors climàtics. Modelar la distribució climàtica d’espècies generalistes sense tenir en compte les limitacions de l’hàbitat pot conduir a una situació de no equilibri, on les prediccions obtingudes poden no ser fiables.

Sardà-Palomera, F. & Vieites, D. (2011) Modelling species' climatic distributions under habitat constraints: a case study with Coturnix coturnix. Annales Zoologici Fennici 48: In press.

New article: Estimating niche metrics accurately

2011-05-03T00:07:00.001+02:00

Despite the central importance of the niche concept for the ecological theory, current methods to quantify the species niche from qualitative resources, such as food or habitat types, remain insufficiently developed. Classically, information theory and diversity measures have formed the toolbox used for calculating resource niche metrics on species preference data for a set of qualitative resources.

In a new article published in Oikos, Miquel De Cáceres, Daniel Sol (CREAF), Oriol Lapiedra (CREAF) and Pierre Legendre (Université de Montréal) provide a comprehensive framework that extends these classical approaches. The extension is done by incorporating the resemblance between resources into the calculation of resource niche metrics. This does not only allow estimation of the niche centre, breadth, overlap and displacement with greater accuracy, but also makes the estimates less influenced by the way the resources are subdivided. In addition, all niche metrics can be calculated while taking into account the variation in resource availability, and confidence intervals can be obtained by bootstrapping observations.

We illustrate the utility of the framework with an analysis of dietary preferences in feral pigeons Columba livia, where the authors compare the niche breadth and overlap of two Catalan pigeon populations.

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Estimes del nínxol més acurades

Malgrat el concepte de níxol ecològic sigui d'una importància cabdal en ecologia, els mètodes actualment utilitzats per a estudiar el níxol a partir de recursos qualitatius, tals com hàbitats utilitzats o tipologies de dieta, necessiten ésser millorats. Clàssicament, la quantificació del níxol a partir de la preferència d'una espècie per un conjunt de recursos qualitatius es realitzava mitjançant mesures basades en la teoria de la informació i mesures de diversitat.

En un nou article publicat a Oikos, Miquel De Cáceres, Daniel Sol (CREAF), Oriol Lapiedra (CREAF) i Pierre Legendre (Université de Montréal) proposen un marc de treball per a l'anàlisi del nínxol que extén les aproximacions clàssiques. La extensió es realitza incorporant la semblança entre recursos qualitatius en el càlcul de les mètriques d'anàlisi del níxol. Aquest enfoc no solament permet estimar les mesures del níxol (amplitud, centre de níxol, solapament, desplaçament) amb menys biaix, sinó que també fa que aquestes mesures estiguin menys influenciades per com els recursos es defineixen. A més, el marc proposat permet obtenir la incertesa de les estimes mitjançant el calcul d'intervals de confiança bootstrap.

Els autors il·lustren la utilitat del marc proposat en l'anàlisi de les preferències de dieta del colom roquer Columba livia, on s'analitzen les diferències d'amplitud de nínxol i solapament entre dues poblacions Catalanes de coloms.

De Cáceres, M., Sol, D., Lapiedra, O. & Legendre, P. A framework for estimating niche metrics using the resemblance between qualitative resources. Oikos , doi: 10.1111/J.1600-0706.2011.19679.x.

New article: Climate or land use change? Tracking the impact of confounding global change components on biodiversity.

2011-04-24T17:01:00.001+02:00

Different components of global change can have interacting effects on biodiversity and this may influence our ability to detect the specific consequences of climate change through biodiversity indicators.

In a new article led by Miguel Clavero and published in PLOS-ONE, we analyze whether climate change indicators can be affected by land use dynamics that are not directly determined by climate change.

To this aim, we analyzed three community-level indicators of climate change impacts that are based on the optimal thermal environment and average latitude of the distribution of bird species present at local communities. We used multiple regression models to relate the
variation in climate change indicators to:

i) environmental temperature.

ii) three landscape gradients reflecting important current land use change processes (land abandonment, fire impacts and urbanization),

We found that, with few exceptions, landscape gradients determined the figures of climate change indicators as strongly as temperature. Bird communities in forest habitats had colder-dwelling bird species with more northern distributions than farmland, burnt or urban areas. Our results show that land use changes can reverse, hide or exacerbate our perception of climate change impacts when measured through community-level climate change indicators. We stress the
need of an explicit incorporation of the interactions between climate change and land use dynamics to understand what are current climate change indicators indicating and be able to isolate real climate change impacts.

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Clavero M, Villero D, Brotons L (2011) Climate Change or Land Use Dynamics: Do We Know What Climate Change Indicators Indicate? PLoS ONE 6(4): e18581. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0018581

Stay at the Landcape Research, New Zealand

2011-04-15T00:11:00.001+02:00

In recent years, rapid developments in statistical techniques to address emerging issues in quantitatively based classification of vegetation plot data, partly a result of the increased power of modern computing, now allow researchers to analyse large (e.g. national scale) datasets in ways not previously possible.

During two months (February and March 2011) Miquel De Cáceres was in New Zealand conducting a collaborative research with Susan Wiser, at Landcare Research. This collaboration focussed on applying fuzzy classification techniques to assigning novel plots across New Zealand to existing qualitative and quantitative classifications for forest and shrubland.

For the past 2 years, Dr. Wiser has worked to develop the first quantitatively based classification of forest and shrubland in New Zealand. Wiser & De Cáceres selected 11943 plot records from New Zealand’s National Vegetation Survey (NVS) databank. They re-sampled the NVS plot records to remove uneven representation along floristic and geographic gradients. Using the fuzzy classification framework of Noise Clustering, they discarded unsuitable original alliances and determined which, among the new plot records, could not be assigned to any original alliances. Those unassigned plots were used to define new alliances by keeping the original alliances as fixed elements to constrain the definition. With the aim of extending the classification to a finer level of resolution, they defined new vegetation associations using the original and new plot records. Finally, they related the two levels of compositional resolution using fuzzy classification of the association centroids into alliances.

As a result of their collaborative work, Wiser & De Cáceres plan on submitting two papers to the Journal of Vegetation Science. They will both attend the annual conference of the International Association of Vegetation Science in Lyon, France in June 2011 to present respective oral papers on this research.
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Estada al Landcape research (Nova Zelanda)

En els darrers anys, s'ha produit avenços en les tècniques estadístiques utilitzades per a classificar inventaris de vegetació mitjançant mètodes quantitatius. A més, l'increment en capacitat de càlcul dels ordinadors moderns ha fet que actualment els investigadors puguin analitzar grans volums de dades (a escala nacional), cosa que fins are no era possible.

Durant dos mesos (Febrer i Març de 2011), Miquel De Cáceres ha estat a Nova Zelanda realitzant una collaboració de recerca amb Susan Wiser, a Landcare Research. Aquesta col·laboració tenia com a objectiu aplicar tècniques de classificació difuses (fuzzy) per a assignar nous inventaris de vegetació llenyosa (boscos i matollars) de Nova Zelanda a una classificació pre-existent (en alliances).

En els darrers dos anys, la Dra. Wiser ha treballat en el desenvolupament de la primera classificació de boscos i matollars neo-zelandesos basada en mètodes quantitatius. Durant la seva colaboració Wiser i De Cáceres seleccionaren en primer lloc 11943 inventaris del banc de dades "National Vegetation Survey". Llavors re-mostrejaren aquests inventaris per tal de reduir el biax de les dades en la representació dels gradients florístics i geogràfics. Mitjançant l'algorisme de classificació difusa "Noise Clustering", descartaren algunes aliances originals no adequats i determinaren quins inventaris no podien ser adscrits a cap de les aliances originals. Aquests inventaris no assignats foren utilitzats per a definir noves aliances, tot i conservant les classes originals com a elements fixos per a condicionar la definició. Amb l'objectiu de extendre la classificació a un nivell de resolució més fi, Wiser i De Cáceres definiren associacions utilitzant tant els inventaris originals com els nous. Finalment, relacionaren els dos nivells de classificació (aliances i associacions) mitjançant la assignació dels centroides de les associacions en aliances.

Com a resultat del seu treball de colaboració, Wiser & De Cáceres es plantegen enviar dos articles a la revista Journal of Vegetation Science. Alhora, tots dos assistiran a la conferència anual de la "International Association of Vegetation Science" que aquest any es realitzarà a Lyon, France (June 2011), on presentaran dos comunicacions orals, respectivament.

Sharing relevant information: eco-land twitter and google reader

2011-03-30T16:42:00.001+02:00

The identification of relevant information is a critical task in modern science. This is a process that researchers do at all times during their professional lifes and sharing such relevant, filtered information is a step forward towards better science.

The ECO-LAND lab wants to promote the use of information sharing tools and two of them are currently used and accessible via the ECO-LAND blog.

ECO-LAND twitter account: this account will ofer information on web-pages, news, research groups and spatial data relevant to the activities carried out by our group but potentially to anyone interested on spatial ecology and global change biology.

Ecology journals recently published articles: This is a short-cut to our Google reader’s account. You will find here a selecton of recent (updated almost daily) articles featuring global change or spatial ecology issues.

Feel free to comment on other ways to share relevant science related information!!!

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La tria d’informació rellevant és una tasca crítica en el desenvolupament de la ciència moderna. Aquest és un procés que tots els investigador porten a terme en tot moment durant les seves vides professionals. Compartir la informació pertinent i filtrada pot esdevenir un pas rellevant cap a una millor ciència.
El laboratori d'ECO-LAND vol promoure l'ús d'eines d'intercanvi d'informació i dos d'aquestes eines són accessibles a través del bloc nostre blog.

El compte twitter d’ECO-LAND: aquest compte ofereix informació sobre pàgines web, notícies, grups de recerca i disponibilitat de dades espacials rellevants per les activitats dutes a terme pel nostre grup, però potencialment també per a qualsevol persona interessada en l'ecologia espacial i la biologia del canvi global.

Recull d’articles recents publicats en revistes d’ecologia: Aquest recull és una drecera al compte del nostre lector de Google reader on trobareu una SELECCIÓ dels darrers (actualitzats gairebé a diari) articles sobre canvi global o diferents qüestions d’ecologia espacial.

Us animem a deixar comentaris sobre altres formes de compartir informació de caràcter científic rellevant!

Risk assessment analysis workshop: methods and applications for evaluating biological invasions

2011-03-29T17:07:00.001+02:00

An exploratory workshop from the European Science Foundation on risk assessment analysis will take place in Girona from 17 to 20th April 2011.

The workshop, coorganized by the CTFC, is led by Núria Roura-Pascual and participated by other components of the ECO-LAND lab and MONTES project. The workshop will gather about 20 international researchers and contribute to increase our understanding of the procedures and methods required to design efficient risk analyses. It will also identify future areas of research and methodological improvements to guide scientific investigations. Further the workshop will examine the implementation of risk analyses for preventing the impacts of biological invasions, and assess the merits and drawbaks of policy instruments derived from risk analyses to improve current management practices.

Finally the workshop aims at establishing a network of researchers working on risk analysis to increase the exchange of information and promote collaborations amongst researchers, but also between researchers and environmental consultants.

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Reunió internacional sobre anàlisi de l’avaluació del risc en biologia de les invasions

Una reunió exploratòria de l’European Science Foundation sobre anàlisi de l’avaluació del risc en biologia de les invasions tindrà lloc a Girona entre el 17 i el 20 d’Abril de 2011.

En aquesta reunió impulsada i coorganitzada pel CTFC i liderada per Núria Roura-Pascual, participen altres membres del grup ECO-LAND i del projecte MONTES. La reunió pretén millorar la nostra comprensió de les metodologies i aproximacions necessaris per dissenyar i implementar anàlisis del risc eficients i identificar àrees de recerca futures.

Visits to the ECO-LAND lab

2011-03-28T22:48:00.001+02:00

During these last weeks we received two international visits to our lab.

Luke Kelly from Deakin University in Australia visited Solsona for some days in February, giving an interesting talk on fire regime impacts on biodiversity in southern Australia.

Cesar Capinha from Évora University has spent three months in our lab working on the spatial modelling of invasive decapods in Europe.

The work he has conducted in Solsona will be part of his PhD and allow the group to continue to explore new avenues in the research of invasive species ecology.

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En aquestes darreres setmanes hem tingut dues visites internacionals rellevants.

En Luke Kelly de la Universitat de Deakin a Australia ens ha visitat i hem pogut comentar els estudis que el seu grup està realitzant al Sud d’Australia sobre l’impacte dels incendis sobre la Biodiversitat.

En Cesar Capinha de la Universitat d’Évora, ha estat dos mesos entre nosaltres desenvolupant models espacials del potencial invasors de diferents crancs de riu a Europa.

New book: Atlas of the breeding birds of Wallonia

2011-02-25T11:02:00.001+01:00

The Wallonian (Belgium) ornithological association AVES has just released their new breeding bird atlas.

ECO-LAND has collaborated with helping the authors in developing the spatial modelling approach used in the mapping of species distributions.

This work is part of the ongoing collaboration with Dr. Nicolas Titeux (Lipmann Research Center), Dr. Jean Yves Paquet (Aves-Natagora) and the Catalan Ornithologial Institute (ICO).

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L’associació ornitològica Valona (Bèlgica) acaba de presentar el seu nou Atles dels Ocells nidificants de Valonia.

El nostre grup ECO-LAND ha col.laborat amb els autors d’aquesta obra en el desenvolupament d’aproximacions de modelització espacial dirigides a la creació de mapes de distribució de les espècies.

Aquest treball és part de les col.laboracions establertes entre el nostre grup i els Dr. Nicolas Titeux (Lipmann Research Center), Dr. Jean Yves Paquet (Aves-Natagora) i l’Institut Català d’Ornitologia (ICO).

Paquet, J.-Y., Dehem, C., Jacob, J.-P., Brotons, L., Derouaux, A., De Sloover, M., Kinet, T., Titeux, N. & Vansteenwegen, C. (2010) : Méthodologie. Pages 36 – 59 in Jacob, J.-P., Dehem, C., Burnel, A., Dambiermont, J.-L., Fasol, M., Kinet, T., van der Elst, D. & Paquet, J.-Y. (2010) : Atlas des oiseaux nicheurs de Wallonie 2001-2007. Série «Faune – Flore – Habitats» n°5. Aves et Région wallonne, Gembloux. 524 pages.

New article: Monitoring variability in post-fire bird colonisation in Mediterranean landscapes (DINDIS database)

2011-01-27T14:44:00.001+01:00

In a new article lead by Elena Lopez-Zozaya and published in the EBCC Cáceres conference special number of the journal Ardeola, the DINDIS bird monitoring data base is officially presented.

The DINDIS database results from the monitoring of bird communities occupying all areas affected by large wildfires in Catalonia since 2000. We used bird surveys conducted from 2006 to 2009 and performed a principal components analysis to describe two main gradients of variation in the composition of bird communities, which were used as descriptors of bird communities in subsequent analyses.

We then analysed the relationships of these community descriptors with bioclimatic regions within Catalonia, time since fire and pre-fire vegetation (forest or shrubland). We have conducted 1,918 bird surveys in 567 transects distributed in 56 burnt areas. Eight out of the twenty most common detected species have an unfavourable conservation status, most of them being associated to open-habitats. Both bird communities’ descriptors had a strong regional component and were related to pre-fire vegetation, and to a lesser extent to the time since fire.

We came to the conclusion that the responses of bird communi- ties to wildfires are heterogeneous, complex and context dependent. Large-scale monitoring datasets, such as DINDIS, might allow identifying factors acting at different spatial and temporal scales that affect the dynamics of species and communities, giving additional information on the causes under general trends observed using other monitoring systems.

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Presentem la base de dades sobre patrons de distribució d’ocells en zones cremades DINDIS.

En aquest article de la nostra companya Elena Lopez-Zozaya, i publicat en el número especial de la revista Ardeola derivat de la darrera conferència del EBCC a la ciutat de Cáceres, es presenta la metodologia emprada i uns primers resultats.

Aquest programa de monitoreig encetat l’any 2006 mostreja tots els incendis majors de 50 ha ocorreguts a Catalunya des de l’any 2000 utilitzant metodologies estàndards utilitzades en altres programes de monitoreig d’ocells a grans escales espacials.

Zozaya, E.L.,Brotons, L., Herrando, S., Pons, P., Rost, J. & Clavero, M. 2010. Monitoring spatial and temporal dynamics of bird communties in Meditarranean landscapes affected by large wildfies. Ardeola 57(Especial), 2010, 33-50.

PhD defence: Elena Lopez Zozaya

2011-01-16T23:07:00.002+01:00

Elena Lopez Zozaya will defend her PhD thesis on February 4th, 11 A.M. in Solsona

Post-fire bird colonization patterns of open-habitat species in Mediterranean lansdcapes.

The defence will take place at the CTFC headquarters in Solsona.

El proper dia 4 de febrer a les 11 del matí, l’Elena Lopez Zozaya llegirà la seva tesi doctoral.

Patrons de colonització post-incendi d’ocells de zones obertes en paisatges Mediterrànis.

La defensa tindrà lloc a la seu del CTFC a Solsona.

STEPPE-AHEAD: Steppe-land birds, agriculture practices and economic viability: towards the conservation of threatened species in humanised landscapes

2011-01-16T23:00:00.000+01:00

New project on farmland systems starting soon and funded by the CSIC Foundation.

The project aims at developing a multidisciplinar approach allowing the integration of threatened species requirements in current agronomic practices. The project is run in collaboration with the our companions at the Animal conservation Lab-CTFC, the group of Ecology and conservation of wild and game fauna at the IREC CSIC center in Ciudad Real, the Group on sustainable agronomy of dry agriculural areas at the UdL and the Research group on rural development at the UAB

Agricultural systems in general and steppe-land extensive farmland in particular, fall in the domain of systems driven by human activities that host a large number of species with high conservation concern. These systems are characterized by a major and profound human use and still are home to a high biodiversity, which is threatened by particular changes in agricultural practices. These changes are leading to major population and distribution declines in species inhabiting these habitats, similar to those undergone by farmland bird species elsewhere in Europe. Reversing such population declines in a farmland context will require a major management and conservation effort in the near future, basically based on well designed measures integrating environmental, social and economic approaches. Conservation efforts will not work if they are focused on a traditional conservation approach based on setting of protected areas with strong limitation on human activities and resource exploitation. In the case of steppe-land birds using extensive farmland habitats, long term conservation will be only ensured if the species habitat requirements are explicitly included into the agricultural practices active in the area and if these agricultural practices are economically viable and integrated and accepted by local farmers.

The main objective of the present project is to conceptually advance in providing new conservation approaches aimed at making the conservation of threatened, steppe-land bird species possible in highly humanized agricultural dominated landscapes. Our approach will be based on the development of landscape use scenarios based on agronomic and local knowledge that will be evaluated both in terms of their economic viability and their potential to host viable populations of the target threatened bird species. This approach should therefore allow guiding the implementation of specific management actions in a sound agronomic context. The present project aims at dealing with two main challenges in current conservation biology. The first is conceptual and deals with the explicit integration of human activities influencing landscapes in conservation strategies. The second is methodological and deals with the development of new modeling methods allowing the integration of key ecological processes determining species distribution changes in flexible platforms allowing the comparison of impacts derived from different scenarios of future change.

New articles: Modelling species richness of trees and birds in forest systems

2011-01-16T22:55:00.001+01:00

For preserving biodiversity of European-Mediterranean forest ecosystems in current and future scenarios of global change by means of sustainable forest management it is necessary to determine how environment and forest characteristics correlate with biodiversity.

Two new articles published in the Journal Forest Systems and Journal of Vegetation Science, in which Assu Gil-Tena and Lluís Brotons took part, have addressed this issue in birds and trees.

The bird models developed had a good generalization capacity and showed that forests with different degrees of canopy closure that were more mature and presented a more diverse tree species composition were also associated with higher bird species richness. This allowed us to provide management guidelines for forest planning in order to promote avian diversity in this European-Mediterranean region.

On the other hand, landscape models of tree and shrub diversity in Central Spain were more informative when they accounted for effects of management practices, at least at intermediate scales. In the context of current rural abandonment, silvicultural disturbances of intermediate intensity increased gamma species richness of woody plants. Exclusion of factors such as agrosilvopastoral systems from
models could have led to spurious relationships with other spatially co-varying factors (e.g. summer precipitation).

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Per preservar la biodiversitat en boscos Mediterranis en escenaris presents i futurs de canvi global és necesari determinar com l’ambient i les característiques dels boscs es relacionen amb els patrons de biodiversitat.

Dos nous artícles publicats a les revistes Forest Systems i Journal of Vegetation Science, en els que han participat Assu Gil-Tena i Lluís Brotons, han tractat aquest tema utilitzant els ocells i els arbres i arbustus com a models d’estudi.

Gil-Tena, A., Vega-García, C., Brotons, L. & Saura,S. 2010. Modelling bird species richness with neural networks in NE Spain. Forest Systems 19:113-125.

Martín-Queller, E., Gil-Tena, A. & Saura, S. 2011. Species richness of woody plants in the landscapes of Central Spain: the role of management disturbances, environment and non-stationarity. Journal of Vegetation Science. DOI: 10.1111/j.1654-1103.2010.01242.

New competitive projects addressing land use changes and biodiversity in two national parcs

2011-01-14T22:58:00.005+01:00

The ECO-LAND lab participates in two new projects to be carried out in the AigüesTortes i Llac de Sant Maurici and Sierra Nevada national parcs.
The project TREBIO is coordinated by the ECO-LAND lab and carried out together with colleagues from the CTFC (FIDBOSC,LABTAG and SILVOPAS). The project aims to develop a methodology to understand the impacts of global change in a mountain landscape context and develop a modeling approach combining the species response to environmental changes at different scales. Future efforts in conservation biology should be targeted towards the explicit inclusion of historical contexts and the interactions between changing factors that affect the ecological systems.

On the other hand, the project MIGRAME, Global Change, Migration and colonization of habitats altitudinal gradients on Mediterranean mountains, coordinated by Regino Zamora at the University of Granada is aimed to evaluate the ability of altitudinal migration and colonization of habitats, considering two other partners to global change: temperature rise and changes of land use.

The TREBIO project aims to improve the level of understanding of the overall impact of human activity on forest systems and shrublands of Aigüestortes and Lake Sant Maurici National Park and integrate into the management logic the reality and constraints derived from the historical changes that have affected these systems and their possible interactions with other components of global change such as climate change. The specific objectives of the project are:

1. The definition and quantification of changes in distribution and structure of the major medium and high altitude communities of herbaceous, shrubs and trees induced by land use changes within the Aigüestortes and Sant Maurici National Park.

2. The identification of major ecological processes that have shaped the changes observed in the dominant herbaceous and shrub communities in the National Park.

3. The determination of the role of structural changes observed in species and habitats of special conservation interest of the park and spatial modelling of their historical response to such changes.

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El grup d’Ecologia del Paisatge participa en dos nous projectes a dur a terme en parcs nacionals AigüesTortes i Llac de Sant Maurici i Sierra Nevada.

El projecte TREBIO, coordinat pel nostre grup i en col.laboració amb altres grups del CTFC (FIDBOSC,LABTAG and SILVOPAS), té com a principal objectiu millorar el nivell de comprensió de l'impacte general de l'activitat humana sobre els sistemes forestals i arbustius del Parc Nacional d'Aigüestortes i Estany de Sant Maurici.

En un context de canvi global d'impacte incert, les accions de conservació que consideren de manera simple factors de canvi aïllats o que no consideren de manera explícita les implicacions derivades de les característiques dels sistemes d'estudi són inadequades a causa dels efectes cascada de les interaccions entre factors no considerats.

Els esforços futurs en biologia de la conservació s'han de encaminar doncs a la inclusió explícita dels contextos històrics i de les interaccions entre els factors de canvi que afecten els sistemes ecològics. Aquest projecte pretén també incorporar en la lògica de gestió a la realitat dels canvis històrics que han afectat aquests sistemes i de les seves possibles interaccions amb altres components del canvi global com el canvi climàtic. Els aspectes específics que s'abordaran en el projecte són:

1 - Definició i quantificació dels canvis de distribució i estructura de les principals comunitats herbàcies, arbustives i arbòries de mitja i alta muntanya induïts per canvis en els usos del sòl del Parc Nacional d'Aigüestortes i Sant Maurici.

2. Identificació dels processos ecològics que han determinat els principals canvis observats en les comunitats herbàcies i arbustives dominants en el parc Nacional.

3. Determinació del paper dels canvis estructurals observats en espècies i hàbitats d'especial interès de conservació del parc i modelització espacial de la seva resposta històrica.

Aquest projecte pretén desenvolupar una metodològica encaminada a la comprensió dels impactes del canvi global en un context paisatgístic de muntanya i abordar un procés de modelització que combini la resposta de les espècies a diferents escales temporals. Les diferents fases del projecte es plantegen un procés exhaustiu de recopilació i anàlisi dels patrons de canvi de paisatge i d'impacte sobre la biodiversitat del Parc Nacional que permetrà la parametrització de models de distribució i la seva utilització en el desenvolupament d'escenaris retrospectius de passat. Finalment, aquests exercicis de modelització ens permetran disposar d'informació sobre els canvis en distribució de les espècies en temps recents.

La gestió de la biodiversitat en àrees protegides s'hauria de realitzar incorporant de manera explícita el coneixement sobre els canvis soferts per aquests sistemes i permetre avaluar la seva possible sensibilitat a nous canvis. La informació generada per aquest projecte té la potencialitat d'esdevenir una potent caixa d'eines per als gestors del parc que permetria establir prioritats de gestió i protecció que tinguessin en compte de manera explícita una perspectiva temporal sobre la variació del paisatge, dels factors que el modifiquen i per tant de les espècies i hàbitats que l'utilitzen.

Finalment, el projecte sobre “Canvi global, Migració altitudinal i colonització d'hàbitats degradats en muntanyes Mediterrànies” (MIGRAME) desenvolupat liderat pel Dr. Regino Zamora de la Universitat de Granada, pretén avaluar la capacitat de migració altitudinal i de colonització d'hàbitats, considerant dos motors associats al canvi global: increment de temperatura i canvis
d'usos del territori.

New article: Climatic suitability and anthropogenic influence determine the pattern of spread in a global invader

2011-01-09T20:40:00.001+01:00

Because invasive species threaten the integrity of natural ecosystems, a major goal in ecology is to develop predictive models to determine which species may become widespread and where they may invade. In a new collaborative study lead by Núria Roura-Pascual an published in the journal PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) new insight on this issue has been uncovered.

Indeed, considerable progress has been made in understanding the factors that influence the local pattern of spread for specific invaders and the factors that are correlated with the number of introduced species that have become established in a given region.

However, few studies have examined the relative importance of multiple drivers of invasion success for widespread species at global scales. Here, we use a dataset of >5,000 presence/absence records to examine the interplay between climatic suitability, biotic resistance by native taxa, human-aided dispersal, and human modification of habitats, in shaping the distribution of one of the world's most notorious invasive species, the Argentine ant (Linepithema humile).

Climatic suitability and the extent of human modification of habitats are primarily responsible for the distribution of this global invader. However, we also found some evidence for biotic resistance by native communities. Somewhat surprisingly, and despite the often cited importance of propagule pressure as a crucial driver of invasions, metrics of the magnitude of international traded commodities among countries were not related to global distribution patterns.

Together, our analyses on the global-scale distribution of this invasive species provide strong evidence for the interplay of biotic and abiotic determinants of spread and also highlight the challenges of limiting the spread and subsequent impact of highly invasive species.

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Nou article: L'adequació climàtica i la influència humana determinen el patró d’expansió d’un invasor global

Com les espècies invasores poder ser una amenaça a la naturalitat dels ecosistemes, un objectiu clau en l’ecologia actual és el desenvolupament de models predictius per determinar quines espècies poden arribar a distribuir-se més àmpliament i quines zones poden envair. En un nou estudi col.laboratiu liderat per la Núria Roura-Pascual i publicat a la revista PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) noves dades sobre aquest tema han estat presentades.

Els anàlisis realitzats sobre la distribució mundial de la formiga argentina aporten evidències consistents sobre l’important paper dels components biòtics (clima) i abiòtics (influència humana) en l’expansió d’aquesta espècie i sobre els reptes plantejats en la limitació d’aquesta expansió i l’impacte posterior d’aquestes espècies altament invasores.

Roura-Pascual, N., Hui, C., Ikea, T., Leday, G., Richardson, D.M., Carpintero, S., Espadaler, X., Gómez, C., Guénard, B., Hartley, S., Krushelnycky, P., Lester, P.J., McGeoch, M.A., Menke, S.B., Pedersen, J.S., Pitt, J.P.W., Reyes, J., Sanders, N.J., Suarez, A.V., Touyama, Y., Ward, D., Ward, P.S., Worner, S.P. Online. Relative roles of climatic suitability and anthropogenic influence in determining the pattern of spread in a global invader. PNAS. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1011723108.

Servidor d’informació sobre els efectes del canvi climàtic (www.ecco.cat)

2010-12-27T15:18:00.001+01:00

The Online server on the effects of climate change on birds and their habitats has as a main objective to introduce the reader to the impact that climate change is having on habitats using bird populations and their responses as study models.

The project relies on research conducted by the Catalan Ornithological Institute (ICO) and the ECO-LAND groups at the CTFC and targets the general public.

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El Servidor d’Informació sobre els Efectes del Canvi Climàtic en els Ocells i els seus Hàbitats té com a objectiu divulgar l'impacte del canvi climàtic en els hàbitats de Catalunya a partir dels canvis detectats en les seves poblacions d’ocells, possiblement el grup biològic més ben conegut.

Per facilitar la comprensió del problema i la conscienciació social, es proporcionen exemples propers estructurats en els següents apartats: Efectes, amb dades de l'afectació del canvi climàtic sobre les poblacions d’ocells de Catalunya; Ocells i hàbitats, amb fitxes d’ocells i hàbitats afectats pel canvi, Prediccions, amb cartografia de la distribució prevista per a quatre espècies a mitjans del segle XXI sota diferents escenaris d’emissió de CO2 i, finalment, Documents, amb els resums dels principals estudis sobre les conseqüències del canvi climàtic en ocells. A més, us animem a realitzar el Test d'actitud personal envers l'escalfament global i a deixar els vostres comentaris i dubtes que mirarem de respondre personalitzadament.

Curs sobre modelització espacial de la biodiversitat a Solsona

2010-12-15T00:54:00.003+01:00

New course on species distribution modelling held in Solsona. More info here.

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Nou curs sobre modelització espacial de la biodiversitat celebrat a Solsona els 17 i 18 de febrer a Solsona.

NOU: MATERIALS DELS CURS

- PRESENTACIONS

- ARTÍCLES I TUTORIALS DE REFERÈNCIA.

El curs, organitzat conjuntament amb l’Àrea de SIG i teledetecció del CTFC, s’emmarca en el programa de cursos 2010-2011 impulsat per la Institució Catalana d’Història Natural (ICHN).

Més informació aquí.

Contributions to the Spanish Ornithology Congress 2010

2010-12-14T15:03:00.000+01:00

The Biodiversity and Animal Conservation lab with the Biodiversity and Landscape Ecology lab participated in the 20th Congress of Spanish Ornithology in Tremp.

The Congress was organized by SEO/BirdLife and the town council of Tremp. Since 4th to 8th of December more than 300 ornithologist and bird’s watchers shared their experiences and views about the world of birds in Tremp. “Mountain birds” was the main subject in this edition, although other interesting questions related to birds were also discussed.

The two groups from the Biodiversity department at the CTFC participated with six oral communications and two posters (see the descriptions below). The poster named “Application of un-manned airplane (UAV) in bird monitoring” by Francesc Sardà won the prize of the best poster of the Congress. In addition, two members of the department took part in two different round table discussion, Miguel Clavero took part in the “Mountain birds and climatic change” table and Gerard Bota took part in the round table discussion entitled “Birds and Agriculture: the irrigated land conflict”.

More info: BAC Lab original post.

New Article: Functional heterogeneity in farmland landscapes.

2010-11-25T09:31:00.001+01:00

Heterogeneity in farmland has been identified as a key feature behind biodiversity patterns hosted in such humanised systems. In a new article published in Ecology letters, an international team of researchers addresses the concept of functional heterogeneity as a key to understand and assess how complex landscapes determine biodiversity patterns.

Biodiversity in agricultural landscapes can be increased with conversion of some production lands into ‘more-natural’– unmanaged or extensively managed – lands. However, it remains unknown to what extent biodiversity can be enhanced by altering landscape pattern without reducing agricultural production. We propose a framework for this problem, considering separately compositional heterogeneity (the number and proportions of different cover types) and configurational heterogeneity (the spatial arrangement of cover types). Cover type classification and mapping is based on species requirements, such as feeding and nesting, resulting in measures of ‘functional landscape heterogeneity’.

We then identify three important questions: does biodiversity increase with (1) increasing heterogeneity of the more-natural areas, (2) increasing compositional heterogeneity of production cover types and (3) increasing configurational heterogeneity of production cover types? We discuss approaches for addressing these questions. Such studies should have high priority because biodiversity protection globally depends increasingly on maintaining biodiversity in human-dominated landscapes

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Nou article sobre heterogeneïtat funcional en paisatges agrícoles.

L'heterogeneïtat del paisatge ha estat identificada en paisatges agrícoles com un element clau al darrera dels patrons de biodiversitat descrits en aquests sistemes tant humanitzat. En aquest nou article redactat per un equip d’investigadors internacionals i publicat a la revista Ecology letters, s’analitza el concepte d'heterogeneïtat funcional com a clau per entendre i analitzar com la complexitat a nivell de paisatge determina els patrons de biodiversitat.

Fahrig, L., Baudry, J., Brotons, L., Burel, F.,Crist, T.O., Fuller, R., Sirami, C., Siriwardena, G.M. & Martin, J.L. 2010. Functional landscape heterogeneity and animal biodiversity in agricultural landscapes. Ecology Letters, DOI:10.1111/j.1461-0248.2010.01559.x

Environmental impact assessment (EIA) of the Segarra-Garrigues channel irrigation project

2010-11-20T00:00:00.001+01:00

The Catalan Environmental department has recently published in its official communication body the EIA of the Segarra –Garrigues channel in which measures to allow sustainable use of farmland resources and the conservation of threatened species such as steppe-land birds. The conflict between species conservation and agriculture transformation is old in the area and this document should allow the problems to settle down.

Together with our calleagues of the Biodiversity and Animal Conservation lab, our group has strongly participated in different ways to the provision of information and methodologies allowing policy decision makers to address concerns expressed by environmental associations and the European comission.

The use of remote sensing images to assess irrigation impact, or the development of species distribution models of key species have been important contributions during the process.

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El Departament de Medi Ambient i Habitatge del Govern Català ha fet públic recentment al DOGC el nou informe d'impacte ambiental del projecte d'irrigació Segarra-Garrigues. En aquest document es plantegen les mesures necessàries per permetre la continuïtat agrícola per les zones en l'àmbit del futur canal i assegurar la conservació d'espècies amenaçades com alguns ocells estèpics. El conflicte entre la conservació d'espècies d'ocells amenaçats i la transformació agrícola ve de llarg i aquest document hauria de contribuir a resoldre una part dels problemes plantejats.

Conjuntament amb el nostres col.legues del Grup de biodiversitat i Conservació Animal, el nostre grup ha participat de manera important i en diferents aspectes en proporcionar informació i noves metodologies amb l'objectiu d'ajudar els agents amb capacitat de decisió a resoldre les problemàtiques plantejades per les associacions de defensa ambiental i la Comissió Europea.

L'ús d'imatges de satèl.lit per avaluar l'impacte real del regadiu, o el desenvolupament de models distribució d'espècies han estat importants contribucions realitzades durant aquest procés.

New article: Geographical variation in distributional constraints

2010-11-19T23:19:00.001+01:00

New article lead by Sara Vallecillo in collaboration with Patrick Osborne at the University of Southhampton on how factors determining species distribution vary in space and how important this may be in modelling.

Factors determining species distributions have frequently been shown to vary geographically, yielding spatially variable species–environment relationships when developing species distribution models. Using occurrence data for four bird species, we analysed to what extent position within the distribution range along a gradient of population aggregation determined geographical variation of distributional constraints.

We built generalised linear models for the whole dataset (global models) and separately for each region within the species range with decreasing population aggregation (core, middle and peripheral). For both global and regional models, we compared species responses to habitat conditions showing an overall higher model fit in peripheral regions than in middle and core regions. Better model fit in peripheral regions was also found after including a spatial factor (i.e. an autocovariate estimating the proportion between the presences and total observations within a 10 km radius) into the global and regional models.

The scattered availability of suitable habitat patches in a predominantly hostile landscape matrix seems to be the limiting factor for species distributions in peripheral regions. Conversely, the larger number of spatially dependent occurrences in core and middle region may favour source and sink population dynamics, yielding poorer relationships between habitat conditions and species occurrence. The role of the spatial factor after removing the co-variation with habitat conditions separately for each region suggests that endogenous processes such as dispersal vary throughout the species range but differently for each species. Geographical variation in distributional constraints can be interpreted as a consequence of the inherent spatial character of ecological processes and their interaction with varying environmental conditions throughout the species range. Overlooking the effects of spatial variation in distributional constraints may lead to erroneous management conclusions and inadequate estimation of the species’ response to environmental changes.

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Nou article impulsat per Sara Vallecillo en colaboració amb Patrick Osborne de la Universitat de Southhampton sobre com els factors que determinen les distribucions de les espècies varien en l’espai i les repercussions d’aquesta variació en processos de modelització.

Els factors que determinen les distribucions de les espècies poden varien en l’espai originant variabilitat espacial en les relacions espècies-hàbitat. En aquest article i utilitzant dades de presència de quatre espècies d’ocell, es va analitzar fins a quin punt la posició al llarg d’un gradient d’agregació poblacional determina la variabilitat en els determinants de la distribució.

Vallecillo, S., Brotons, L. & Osborne, P. (in press). Geographic variation in the distributional constraints along a gradient of population aggregation. Acta Oecologica. doi:10.1016/j.actao.2010.10.004

Common Bird Monitoring Workshop

2010-10-09T21:42:00.002+02:00

Second meeting of SOCC participants in Solsona

Volunteers and researches taking part in the Catalan Common Bird Monitoring (SOCC) met at the CTFC in Solsona on October the 9th. New advances and applications of common bird monitoring where discussed including bird counting exercises and the identification of common biases associated to bird counting.

New advancements in indicator science such as the climate bird indicator developed by the European Bird Census Council (EBCC) were also presented and discussed.

GIS & Remote sensing master project: Núria Aquilué. Landscape models and fire.

2010-10-06T17:13:00.001+02:00

Modelling landscape dynamics driven by fire (MEDFIRE model)

Landscapes are not static and in Mediterranean regions such as Catalonia fire is driving to a large extent current changes in forest extent and composition. In her master work Núria Aquilué has addressed different questions regarding to the complexity of calibrating landscape realistic models using SELES modelling language.

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Modelitzant la dinàmica de paisatge conduida pel foc (el model MEDFIRE)

La Núria Aquilué ha defensat el seu projecte de final de màster en Teledetecció i Sistemes d'Informació Geogràfica 2009/10 (UAB-CREAF).

El projecte ha presentat tractat el model MEDFIRE. Un model espacialment explícit que integra el règim d’incendis forestals i la dinàmica de la vegetació per tal de reproduir els principals factors que caracteritzen la composició de les zones forestals de les regions mediterrànies. El model s’ha aplicat a Catalunya en un període temporal de deu anys altament influenciat per episodis de condicions extremes que propicien la generació dels grans incendis forestals. S'ha analitzat de manera detallada el procés de construcció del mapa forestal inicial per disposar d’un mapa de distribució de les espècies arbòries més representatives del territori i claus en la comprensió dels impactes del foc.

S’ha desenvolupat una metodologia per verificar que el model reprodueix de manera fidel el règim d’incendis, utilitzat com a
paràmetre d’entrada. Finalment, s’ha desenvolupat un mètode per calibrar els paràmetres que relacionen de manera directa les cobertes arbòries representades en el mapa forestal i l’impacte dels incendis a escala regional: la taxa de propagació del foc i la seva probabilitat de combustió. Els resultats mostren que tant aquestes dues propietats de la vegetació dominant, com la distribució espacial dels punts d’ignició són importants per reproduir el règim d’incendis observat en la dècada dels 90 a Catalunya.

ECO-LAND blog reaches 4000 visits!

2010-10-01T01:31:00.003+02:00

The blog reaches 4000 visits and more than 8000 page views since its release about one year ago!!

El nostre blog arriba a les 4000 visites i més de 8000 visualitzacions de pàgines durant el seu primer any de vida!!!

New articles: Fires are not that bad: impacts at the community level on birds and arthropods

2010-09-30T23:50:00.008+02:00

Two new articles on fire-triggered ecosystem changes has been published in Ecography, as a result of a collaborative work lead by Marco Moretti and with the participation of Miquel De Cáceres, and Journal of Animal Ecology by Miguel Clavero and Lluís Brotons in collaboration with Sergi Herrando at the ICO.

It is often suggested that fire acts as an environmental filter that selects species and functional traits, and reduces trait variability within communities. Moretti et al. have studied these effects in fire-sensitive ecosystems, such as the central European Alps, where fires are scarce. The authors used two families of saproxylic beetles (i.e. Cerambycidae and Buprestidae) as model group to test the combined effect of fire and altitude on species and trait composition. Results showed an overall positive effect of fire on taxonomic and functional diversity, while indicator species and community analyses revealed that the response to fire was also modulated by altitude. The positive effect of fire and the presence of large populations of pyrophilous species suggest co-evolution with fire and adaptation to disturbance in the Alps.

In the second article we tested the hypothesis that disturbance favours generalist species within communities, analysing effects of wildfires in bird communities in a Mediterranean climate area as a case study. Using, bird occurrence data in more than 500 1x1 km squares forming a gradient running from forest to completely burnt areas. The level of specialization of bird communities was estimated by means of three complementary species specialization indices, calculated for different landscape gradients and averaged at the community level and mean species rarity. We also calculated mean habitat preferences along landscape gradients, as well as an index of conservation value and total species richness.

Wildfires seem to play an important role for the maintenance of open-habitat, urban-avoider bird populations in Mediterranean landscapes and also to benefit a set of species of unfavourable European conservation status. In this context, it can not be unambiguously concluded that fire disturbance, even in a context in which fires are greatly favoured by human-related activities, leads to more functionally simplified communities dominated by generalist species.

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Els focs no semblen tant dolents: impactes a nivell de comunitat en ocells i artròpodes

Dos nous articles tractant els canvis ecosistèmics derivats de l’acció del foc han aparegut a la revista Ecography (com a resultat d’un treball col·laboratiu dirigit pel Marco Moretti, i en el que Miquel De Cáceres ha participat); i a la revista Journal of Animal Ecology amb la participació de Miguel Clavero i Lluís Brotons en col.laboració amb el Sergi Herrando del ICO.

Sovint es suggereix que el foc actúa com un filtre ambiental que selecciona espècies i característiques funcionals, i redueix la variabilitat de caràcters dins de les comunitats. Aquest efecte ha estat estudiat per Moretti et al. en ecosistemes sensibles al foc com són els Alps centrals europeus. Els autors han utilitzat dues famílies d’escarbats saproxílics (Cerambycidae i Buprestidae) com a grup model per a testar l’efecte combinat del foc i l’altitud en la composició de caràcters i espècies de les comunitats. Els resultats mostren un efecte positiu del foc en la diversitat funcional i taxonòmica, modulada per l’altitud. La presència de grups pyrofils suggereix co-evolució amb el foc i adaptació dels ecosistemes dels Alps a la perturbació.

Clavero, M., Brotons, L. and Herrando, S (2010) Bird community specialisation, bird conservation and disturbance: the role of wildfires. Journal of Animal Ecology, in press. DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2656.2010.01748.x

Moretti, M., De Cáceres, M., Pradella, C., Obrist, M.K., Wermelinger, B., Legendre, P. and Duelli, P. (2010) Fire-induced taxonomic and functional changes in saproxylic beetle communities in fire sensitive regions. Ecography 33(4): 760-771.

Global Index of Vegetation Databases (GIVD)

2010-09-20T19:24:00.001+02:00

At the 9th international Meeting on Vegetation Databases (26–28 February 2010, Hamburg, Germany), it was decided to establish a global metadatabase of vegetation data that is publicly available. This initiative has lead to the definition of the Global Index of Vegetation Databases (GIVD). GIVD is a metadatabase, i.e. it contains data about these vegetation-plot databases, e.g. how many relevés from which regions are included, not the data themselves. All databases with temporally and spatially explicit species co-occurrence data of plants for plots up to 2 ha are eligible for GIVD, provided their owners are basically willing to share them with other scientists.

Such a metadatabase shall provide an overview of exiting data, allow researchers to retrieve suitable data for specific research questions, and thus enhance the awareness and application of this valuable but underestimated source of biodiversity information. The metadatabase is managed by the 15 members of a worldwide steering committee. One of these members is our team member Miquel de Cáceres.

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Índex Global de bases de dades de vegetació (GIVD)

Sorgit del 9th international Meeting on Vegetation Databases (26–28 Febrer 2010, Hamburg, Alemanya) es decidí d’establir una base de metadades de vegetació que contingués la informació de quines bases de dades de vegetació estan disponibles públicament. Això ha portat a definir el “Global Index of Vegetation Databases” (GIVD).

El GIVD és una base de metadades de vegetació (i.e., conté informació sobre bases de dades de vegetació com el nombre d’inventaris i de quines regions). Les bases de dades de vegetació incloses en aquest index contenen dades de co-ocurrència de plantes en parcel•les (plots) de fins a 2 hectàrees, amb una referència temporal i espacial (geolocalització) explícita. A més, els propietaris de les bases de dades es comprometen a compartir les seves dades amb altres científics.

Aquest index permetrà que estudiosos de la vegetació puguin accedir més facilment a les dades de vegetació per tal de realitzar activitats de recerca o de gestió medioambiental. Es pretén, així millorar la disponibilitat d’aquestes dades de biodiversitat i estimular-ne el seu ús en diverses aplicacions. La base de metadades està gestionada per 15 membres del “steering commitee”, provinents de diferents parts del planeta. Un d'aquests membres és el nostre company Miquel de Cáceres.

New article: linguistic injustice in ecological journals.

2010-09-08T00:39:00.019+02:00

A letter on the issue of linguistic injustice in science by Miguel Clavero has been published in TREE.

International scientific communication is monolithically dominated by English, particularly within natural sciences. The professional career of individual scientists relies on their ability to publish in internationally relevant journals, and writing in English is the only way to achieve this. Non-native English speakers are thus clearly disadvantaged with respect to native English speakers when trying to get their work published.

Acknowledging that having a common language promotes the progress of science, this letter argues that the present situation is a clear example of linguistic injustice, at least for two main reasons. First, all the costs of having a common international language in science are borne by non-native English scientists, this implying an unfair cooperation in obtaining a common good (i.e. a common language). Secondly, native English speakers, who benefit for free from having a common language, tend to dominate all possible arguments with non-native speakers, since the latter’s language skills never reach those of the former.

The letter makes different proposals to reduce the impact of the linguistic injustice problem among the non-native English scientific community. Its main aim is to stimulate a debate on the intrinsic inequalities between native and non-native English speakers when trying to publish their science.
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Injusticies ecologiques en les revistes d'ecologia

En aquesta carta publicada a la prestigiosa revista TREE s'introdueix el concepte d'injusticia linguistica entre els cientifics que no tenen com a llengua materna l'angles i es proposa estimular el debet sobre les desgualtats actualment existents entre els parlants nadius i ens no nadius quants uns i els altres intenten publicar la seva recerca.

Clavero, M. (2010) "Awkward wording. Rephrase": linguistic injustice in ecological journals. Trends in Ecology and Evolution (in press).

New article: Environmental constraints of the otter expansion in Andalucia.

2010-09-07T00:43:00.002+02:00

In a new article published in the Journal of Biogeography lead by Miguel Clavero and collaborators from Doñana Biological Station (CSIC), new insights into the processes driving the expansion of otters have been investigated.

As has happened throughout Europe, the otter (Lutra lutra) has expanded its distribution range in the Iberian Peninsula in the last decades. In this work, we analyze the relationships between otter distribution dynamics and environmental and spatial constraints over a 20-year period, using data from Andalusia, southern Iberian Peninsula.

We synthesized otter distribution data from three otter surveys (1985, 1995 and 2005) using subcatchment areas defined by hydrological barriers. Subcatchments were characterised by two “natural” (climatic and orographic variables) and two “human” (land use and population density) gradients. In addition, we calculated two contagion variables (the distance to previously occupied subcatchments and the percentage of occupied subcatchments within a 50 km buffer) for consecutively surveyed subcatchments.

Between 1985 and 2005 the percentage of subcatchments with otter presence increased from 42% to 72%. Otters tended to be rare or absent from human-dominated areas. Anthropogenic gradients were better predictors of otter distribution than natural ones. Human and natural gradients showed strong covariation, but for any value of the natural gradients otters tended to be present in subcatchments with lower human impacts. Colonization of new subcatchments was found to be strongly related to contagion variables and expansion rates were slower than those estimated in other studies. Newly colonized areas tended to be located in areas with intermediate human influence, while repeated absences occurred mainly in areas where human impact was most severe.

Our results suggest that recent otter expansion across Andalusia is a reflection of large-scale improvement in environmental conditions. Otter populations that survived the period of strong and generalized declines appear to be acting as sources from which neighbouring areas are colonized, probably aided by improved water quality and increases in food availability. However, the further expansion of otters into their full original range is likely to be constrained by human impacted landscapes.

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Nou article sobre la expansio de la lludriga a Andalusia
En aquest nou article publicat a la revista Journal of Biogeography en col.laboracio amb companys de l'Estacio Biologica de Doñana s'han analitzat els determinants ambientals i espacials de l'expansio de la lludriga a Andalusia entre 1985 i 2005.

Clavero, M. Hermoso, V., Brotons, L. and Delibes, M. (2010) Natural, human and spatial constraints to expanding populations of otters in the Iberian Peninsula. Journal of Biogeography (in press)

New article: Geographic distribution of threats to Mediterranean freshwater fish

2010-09-05T23:39:00.015+02:00

A new article published in the journal Diversity & Distributions and led by Miguel Clavero addresses the spatial distribution of threats and imperilment of freshwater fish in the Mediterranean basin.

The level of imperilment of Mediterranean freshwater fish is amongst the highest recorded for any group of organisms evaluated to the date. This article describes the geographical patterns in the incidence of threats affecting Mediterranean freshwater fish and test whether the effects of specific threats are spatially related to the degree of imperilment of fish faunas.

We recorded the main threats to 232 endemic freshwater fish species and used data on fish distributions from IUCN to characterize the spatial patterns in the incidence of those threats (as % of species affected). We studied the relationships between threat incidence and two estimators of imperilment at two spatial scales (10×10 km and basins) using partial least squares regressions (PLSR) that incorporated the effects of species richness and mean range size.

We found that the main axis of variation in the incidence of threats to freshwater fish split areas mainly affected by invasive species from those areas where species are threatened by pollution and agriculture. Wherever invasive species and water extraction were predominant threats fish assemblages consistently tended to be more imperiled.

As far as we know, this is the first large-scale analysis on the spatial relationships between the incidence of threats and level of imperilment of any taxonomic group. Our results highlight the primary role of invasive species and water extraction as drivers of native fish declines in the Mediterranean Basin. Large-scale patterns described here should be generated by local-scale impacts of both threats on fish biodiversity, widely reported in Mediterranean areas. This strongly points out that controlling invasive species and reducing overexploitation of freshwater resources should be conservation priorities for Mediterranean freshwater systems.
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Distribució geogràfica de les amenaces per peixos en perill a la conca Mediterrània

Un nou article publicat a la revista Diversity & Distributions liderat Miguel Clavero analitza la distribució espacial d'amenaces i grau de perill dels peixos d'aigua dolça en el global de la conca Mediterrania

El grau de perill actual en que es troben els peixos d'aigua dolça de la conca Mediterrània es troba entre els més alts descrits per qualsevol grup biològic analitzat. En aquest article es descriuen el patrons geogràfics de la incidència de les principals amenaces que afecten aquest grup i es testa fins a quin punt la distribució d'aquestes amenaces concretes es relaciona amb el greu de perill de les faunes de peixos descrites en diferents zones. faunas.

Clavero, M. Hermoso, V., Levin, N. and Kark, S. (2010) Geographical linkages between threats and imperilment in freshwater fish in the Mediterranean Basin. Diversity & Distributions 16: 744-754.

Eco-land goes twitting

2010-09-05T11:47:00.010+02:00

The lab introducing twitter as way of communicating interesting news and ideas not directly issued from its activities. You can check recent and old tweets from: http://www.twitter.com/ecolandlab

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El laboratori introdueix twitter com una nova eina de comunicació de notícies i idees rellevants a la seva tasca però no directament generats pel nostre grup. Podeu consultar tweets recents i antics a: http://www.twitter.com/ecolandlab

New article: Management of numerical vegetation classifications

2010-08-18T19:10:00.005+02:00

New paper on numerical classifications of vegetation published in the Journal of vegetation science and lead by Miquel de Cáceres in collaboration with a University of Barcelona team.

In this paper, we compared the performance of fuzzy C-means (FCM), noise clustering (NC) and possibilistic C-means (PCM) on four different management tasks: (1) assigning new relevé data to existing types; (2) updating types incorporating new data; (3) defining new types with unclassified relevés; and (4) reviewing traditional vegetation classifications.

The results indicate that, as fuzzy classifiers, FCM fails to indicate when a given relevé does not belong to any of the existing types; NC might leave too many relevés unclassified; and PCM membership values cannot be compared. As unsupervised clustering methods, FCM is more sensitive than NC to transitional relevés and therefore produces fuzzier classifications. PCM looks for dense regions in the space of species composition, but these are scarce when vegetation data contain many transitional relevés.

We conclude that all three models have advantages and disadvantages, although the NC model may be a good compromise between the restricted FCM model and the robust but impractical PCM model. In our opinion, fuzzy clustering might provide a suitable framework to manage vegetation classifications using a consistent operational definition of vegetation type. Regardless of the framework chosen, national/regional vegetation classification panels should promote methodological standards for classification practices with numerical tools.

De Cáceres, M., Font, X, Oliva, F. (in press) The management of numerical vegetation classifications with fuzzy clustering methods. Journal of Vegetation Science. DOI: (http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1654-1103.2010.01211.x).

Book release: Effects of Climate Change on Birds

2010-08-13T13:06:00.045+02:00

A new book has been recently published by Oxford University Press addresses the impact of climate change on birds. Lluís Brotons has been involved in one of the chapters (number 18) in which the impact of climate change at the community scale has been reviewed. The chapter can be obtained from the author upon request.

The book synthesizes the literature on birds and climate change, suggesting future research directions. Provides extensive overviews of the implications of climate change at a range of scales (from individuals to communities) for migration, genetics, genomics, ecology, evolution, and conservation. It also includes a set of short, methodological chapters that tackle specific issues of analysis, illustrated with examples and key references. Finally, the book integrates contributions from the leading researchers in the field to provide a truly coherent and comprehensive approach to the topic.

Climate change affects all living organisms; it has done so in the past and will do so in the future. However, current climate change is exceptional both in terms of the rate of change and the impact of multiple types of global change on individuals, populations, species, and ecosystems.

Effects of Climate Change on Birds provides an exhaustive and up-to-date synthesis of the science of climate change as it relates to birds. Compared with any other class of animals, birds provide more long-term data and extensive time series (some dating back more than 100 years), a more geographically and taxonomically diverse source of information, and a longer tradition of extensive research. In fact this research record exceeds what is available in all other organisms combined.

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El canvi climàtic i els ocells

Un nou llibre ha estat recentment publicat en el que s'analitza el coneixement avui disponible sobre l'impacte del canvi climàtic en els ocells. Lluís Brotons ha estat involucrat en un dels capítols d'aquest llibre on s'analitza a manera de revisió els impactes del canvi climàtic sobre els ocells a escala de comunitat. El capítol es pot obtenir dels autors per correu electrònic.

Brotons, L. & Jiguet, F. 2010. Bird communities and climate change. In: A. P. Møller, W. Fielder and P. Berthold (eds) Effects of climate change on birds. Oxford University Press. Oxford.

New article: Land use changes and mountain pine expansion in the Pyrenees

2010-06-13T18:20:00.004+02:00

In this new study and in collaboration with researchers from the FIDBOSC research group we have analysed the changes in mountain pine forests during the last 50 years.

Over the last 50 years, mountain pine (Pinus uncinata Ram.) has expanded its surface area in the Pyrenees by 15%, according to a study recently published in Global Ecology and Biogeography by researchers of the Forest Technology Centre of Catalonia (CTFC).

The study covered more than 6,000 km² of the Catalan Pyrenees (NE Spain) and showed a strong relationship between forest encroachment and land-use changes, especially with farmland abandonment and changes in grazing pressure. Thus socio-economic factors arose as major factors in mountain pine expansion, as encroachment rates were higher in municipalities with greater population losses or weaker primary sector development.

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Améztegui, A., Brotons, L, & Coll, L. 2010. Land use changes as major drivers or mountain pine expansion in the Pyrenees. Global Ecology & Biogeography, DOI: 10.1111/j.1466-8238.2010.00550.x.

CAMBIARE: communicating the effects of global change on reptiles and amphibians in Spain

2010-06-13T18:04:00.009+02:00

CAMBIARÉ? GLOBAL CHANGE IMPACTS ON IBERIAN AMPHIBIANS AND REPTILES

We are finalizing the CAMBIARE? website, about global change effects on Iberian amphibians and reptiles species, funded by the Fundación Biodiversidad and with the colaboration of the AHE (Spanish Herpetological Society).

The project is focused on the development of an indicator about climate change sensitivity of species, based on extrapolation of species distribution models to future climates. Integration of the indicator across species will allow the analysis of climate change sensitivity at higher taxonomic levels, and at different types of threats, according to the major threats related to every species. This link between climate change sensitivity and species major threats will fuel the discussion about the effects of global change on Iberian amphibians and reptiles. The website's main objective is to communicate the results of the project using new geospatial technologies. These technologies offer direct access to climate change sensitivity indicator maps through map server, which facilitates their understanding and interpretation, bringing users to their own geographical context.

In addition, the website will include all necessary documentation for understand and interpretate these maps, including relevant information about species, methodological descriptions, and discussion about the main impacts on biodiversity and strategies to minimize it. This is aimed at achieving the twin objectives of promoting knowledge and awareness of the effects of global change, and encouraging critical thinking for decision making in everyday life.

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CAMBIARÉ? IMPACTOS DEL CAMBIO GLOBAL SOBRE LOS ANFIBIOS Y REPTILES IBÉRICOS

Estamos ultimando la web del proyecto CAMBIARÉ? sobre los efectos del cambio global en anfibios y reptiles ibéricos. La web está financiada por la Fundación Biodiversidad y se ha desarrollado en colaboración con la Asociación Herpetologica Española. El proyecto CAMBIARÉ? consiste en el desarrollo de un indicador de sensibilidad al cambio climático basado en la extrapolación al futuro de modelos de distribution de especies.

La integración del indicador ha de permitir el análisis de la sensibilidad al cambio climatico de diferentes grupos taxonómicos, y de diferentes tipos de amenazas, de acuerdo con las principales amenazas de cada especie. Esta relación entre la sensibilidad al cambio climatico y las principales amenazas para las especies alimentará la discusión sobre los efectos del cambio global en el conjunto de anfibios y reptiles ibéricos. La web tiene como principal objetivo comunicar los resultados del proyecto empleando nuevas tecnologias geoespaciales. Estas tecnologias ofrecen un acceso directo a los mapas de sensibilidad al cambio climatico a traves de un servidor servidores cartografico, lo que facilita su comprensión e interpretación, acercando a los usuarios a su propio contexto geográfico.

Además, la web incluirá la documentación necesaria para la interpretación de la cartografía, incluyendo información relevante sobre las especies, así como la descripción de la metodologia para la obtención del indicador de cambio climatico, y documentación específica dónde se discutirán los principales impactos sobre la biodiversidad y estrategias para minimizarlos. De este modo se pretende conseguir el doble objetivo de fomentar el conocimiento y concienciación sobre los efectos del cambio global, y estímulo del pensamiento crítico para la toma de decisiones en la vida cotidiana.

New article: Functional homogenization along habitat gradients

2010-05-19T20:49:00.008+02:00

In this new study published in the Global Ecology & Biogeography, we developed a multidimensional measure of niche specialization and apply it to test whether functional homogenization of bird communities in a Mediterranean region is promoted by anthropogenic habitat transformation.

We used data on bird species occurrences and landscape features to derive three orthogonal landscape gradients, which were taken as niche dimensions. Specialization and habitat preference indices were created for 103 terrestrial bird species on the basis of their frequency of occurrence variation along the landscape gradients. These indices, together with species rarity, were then averaged for bird communities and sued to analyse the patterns of variation of communities’ mean specialization, mean rarity and mean habitat preference values along a gradient of agricultural–forest habitat mosaics.

Wherever we found a significant variation in the degree of specialization along the agricultural–forest gradient, agricultural habitats held more specialized bird communities than did forest ones and bore, on average, rarer species. Thus, results contradicted our initial hypothesis that humanized areas would bear more functionally homogenized bird communities. Higher a-diversity values tended to be associated with generalist communities and with those having rarer species. Estimations of bird community specialization for different niche dimensions can behave differently along certain landscape gradients, and some of these differences can be explained by the variation of mean habitat pref- erences. Thus, we argue that a multidimensional approach to assess average niche breadth of communities can be more informative than a unidimensional measure. Our results suggest that widespread land abandonment and current secondary forest expansion throughout the Mediterranean area are promoting functional homogenization of bird communities. It would be desirable to construct larger- scale indicators of functional homogenization in order to monitor communities’ responses to widespread landscape changes.

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Nou article: Homogenització funcional al llarg de gradients de paisatge

En aquest article publicat a la revista Global Ecology & Biogeography, hem desenvolupat mesures multidimensional de quantificació del nínxol ecològic i les hem aplicat al test de la hipòtesi de si les transformacions causades per l'acció humana, com l'agricultura o l'abandonament rural, promouen un augment en la homogenització funcional de les comunitats d'ocells a la Mediterrània.

Clavero, L. & Brotons, L. 2010. Functional homogenization of bird communities along habitat gradients: accounting for niche multidimensionality. Global Ecology & Biogeography, DOI: 10.1111/j.1466-8238.2010.00544.x.

Course: Dynamic Landscape modelling by Andrew Fall

2010-04-23T11:50:00.010+02:00

Applying dynamic landscape models for research and sustainable forest management experiences and lessons from across Canada and Europe.

NEW!!!!! COURSE MATERIALS: CLICK HERE

NOU!!!!! MATERIALS DEL CURS: CLICA AQUÍ

Next May 5th a new course will be organised on Dynamic landscape modelling. the course organised by the Centre Tecnològic Forestal de Catalunya in the context of the CONSOLIDER-MONTES and BIOPRED projects will be held in Solsona and given by Dr. Andrew Fall (Simon Fraser University, Canadà). Dr. Fall has developed SELES modelling environment (Spatially-Explicit Landscape Event Simulator).

Please clik here for further details on the course logistics.

Landscape ecology focuses on interactions between pattern and process. Landscape models provide a practical tool for landscape ecologists to explore natural disturbance, habitat supply, potential impacts from climate change, endangered species recovery planning, sustainable forest management, cumulative impact assessments, connectivity analysis, etc.

This one-day course will focus on the development and application of spatial-dynamic landscape models for research and management of large spatial areas. Dr. Fall has developed a tool to build landscape models, SELES (Spatially Explicit Landscape Event Simulator) over the past 14 years, which has been used across Canada and elsewhere for research and decision support.

Models have ranged from simple experiments (e.g. neutral models) to complex land-use planning and integrated analysis of coastal temperate rainforest ecosystems.This course will draw on these experiences using a mixture of presentations of concepts and case studies. Depending on participant interest, some simple hands-on examples, and open discussion among participants on current/local issues.

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Curs sobre Modelització del paisatge impartit per l'Andrew Fall

El proper dimecres 5 de maig es realitzarà un curs d'un dia sobre Modelització Dinàmica del paisatge organitzat pel Centre Tecnològic Forestal de Catalunya (CTFC) a Solsona (Catalunya) dins el marc del projecte CONSOLIDER-MONTES. Aquest curs serà impartit pel Dr Andrew Fall (Simon Fraser University, Canadà) autor de l'entorn de modelització SELES (Spatially-Explicit Landscape Event Simulator). Seles permet desenvolupar models dinàmics de paisatge, des de senzills models neutrals fins models complexos d'ús del sòl. En el curs es presentaran diferents casos d'aplicació de SELES duts a terme a Canadà i Europa, amb fins de gestió i investigació. El curs s'impartirà exclusivament en anglès.

Si us plau, difondre aquest missatge a qui pogués estar interessat en assistir al curs.

MÉS INFO.

TPT: Óscar Santafé. Oak regeneration in pine forests

2010-04-13T15:02:00.005+02:00

Oak regeneration patterns in pine forests

Forest regeneration is a complex proces driven by many interacting factors. In this TPT master (UdL) study, Óscar Santafé supervised by Carol Puerta have investigated the factor determining natural regeneration patterns of oak sedlings in pine forests (Pinus nigra) in Catalonia.

The results point to the fact that natural regeneration driven by dispersal such as the Jay is key factor in determining regeneration patterns of oaks in the study area.

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Regeneració de quercínies en pinedes de pinassa

La regeneració de les plantes és un procés molt complex en el qual intervenen un conjunt de factors i processos intermedis molt extens. En aquest projecte de TPT (UdL) realitzat per Óscar Santafé i supervisat per la Carol Puerta hem intentat fer una aproximació al coneixement de com es produeix la regeneració natural d’espècies quercínies arbòries (espècies del gènere Quercus L.) en masses de pinassa (Pinus nigra) del Solsonès.

La regeneració d’aquestes espècies es veu condicionada, per diferents factors o variables ecològiques i ambientals. Aquests, que poden ser d’origen biòtic o abiòtic, interfereixen sobre el procés de reclutament de manera positiva o negativa, és a dir, afavorint o limitant.

Per estudiar la forma en què es produeix la regeneració d’aquestes espècies i identificar alguns dels factors que la condicionen hem realitzat un estudi basat en un disseny factorial considerant dues variables: l’orientació o exposició (obaga i solana), i la densitat de quercínies (baixa, mitjana i alta).

S’han trobat unes taxes de regeneració força altes ( 10,31 ± 1,73 peus de regenerat/transsecte, de mitjana), encara que aquestes varien, tot i que en poca mesura, entre els diferents nivells d’estudi. La major part de la regeneració trobada prové de llavor. Aquest èxit en la regeneració l’atribuïm a l’excel·lentíssima feina que realitzen els animals dispersors de glans, principalment el gaig, traslladant aquestes a llocs segurs i la facilitació degut a l’ombreig que dóna la massa arbòria. Aquests llocs segurs són aquells on el balanç entre factors afavoridors i limitadors és positiu en favor dels primers.

New article: Understanding (insect) species distributions across spatial scales

2010-04-05T22:18:00.004+02:00

Ecography 33(1) is the first issue of volume 33 published by Ecography in February 2010, which includes a special section dedicated to “Understanding (insect) species distributions across spatial scales”. This sections is composed of an Editorial and 11 Research papers providing an integral up-to-date overview of the spatial determinants of insect species distribution across spatial scales and a common framework for evaluating the spatial responses of insects at these scales.

Most of these studies were presented at the symposium entitled “Sampling and modelling the spatial responses of insects across spatial scales”, organized by Joaquín Hortal (Imperial College) and Núria Roura-Pascual (Centre Tecnològic Forestal de Catalunya and Center for Invasion Biology) at the 2008 International Congress of Entomology (Durban, South Africa, 6-12 July 2008).

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18th conference of the European Bird Census Council

2010-03-25T18:49:00.003+01:00

ECO-LAND members have attended and significantly contributed to the 18th Conference held in Cáceres, Spain, between 22-26th March.

The conference was a meeting place for ornithologists and conservation biologists all over Europe who reported on last news regarding mapping and monitoring of birds all across de continent.

Elena Lopez-Zozaya presented DINDIS monitoring efforts aimed at detecting bird community patterns of change in arees affected by fire in Catalonia. Francesc Sardà presented recent applications of remote sensing data on dynamic bird distribution modelling of quail populations. Other presentations by Olatz Aizpurua and companions from the Catalan ornithological institute presented recent devolpments on mapping applicatons and news on monitoring programs run in Catalonia. Finally, Lluís Brotons was involved in the launch of new exciting initiatives aiming at producing pan-European maps and a new European breeding bird atlas.

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New article: Integrating conservation into landscape planning

2010-03-03T14:57:00.011+01:00

In this new study and in collaboration with researchers from the Catalan Ornithological Institute (ICO) we developed a simple quantitative method to assist in the decision making process of the landscape planning by integrating information of species occurrence and their individual IUCN extinction risks.

We applied this method in Catalonia using bird atlas data to create an Index of Cumulative Threat Status (ICUTS). We employed a heuristic approach derived from qualitative scores provided by 10 experts on the avifauna of the region to choose the final index among agroup of candidates. This index was used to generate two maps of conservation value. The approach developed in this study may be particularly helpful in landscape planning outside protected areas because of its spatial continuity, fine grained resolution and easy interpretation. The apporach has been already used in the SITXELL project from the Catalan local administration Diputació de Barcelona.

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Nou article: Integrant la conservació en la planificació territorial

En aquest article publicat a la revista anglesa Biodiversity & Conservation, amb els companys de l'Institut Català d'Ornitologia s'ha desenvolupat un simple mètode quantitatiu per permetre la utilització de criteris de valor de conservació en el procés de presa de decision en la planifiació territorial. Aquest mètode es combina informació sobre la distribució de les espècies i el seu risc d'extinció estimat a partir dels criteris desenvolupats per la IUCN.

Herrando, S., Brotons, L., Guallar, S., & Quesada , J. 2010. Assessing regional variation in conservation value using fine-grained bird atlas. Biodiversity & Conservation, DOI 10.1007/s10531-009-9741-0.

New article: Testing for environmental induced changes in ecology

2010-01-19T02:07:00.008+01:00

In order to test hypotheses about changes in the environment induced by man, including climatic change, ecologists are sampling portions of the environment repeatedly across time.

This new paper co-authored by Miquel de Cáceres paper describes a method for testing a space–time interaction in repeated ecological survey data, when there is no replication at the level of individual sampling units (sites). This methodological development is important for the analysis of long-term monitoring data, including systems under anthropogenic influence. In these systems, an interaction may indicate that the spatial structure of community composition has changed in the course of time or that the temporal evolution is not the same at all sites.

This paper describes ANOVA models corresponding to the steps leading to a solution to the problem, which is based on the representation of space and time by principal coordinates of neighbor matrices (PCNM eigenfunctions) in the ANOVA. The paper presents two applications to real ecological data.

Legendre, P., De Càceres, M. & Borcard, D. 2010. Community surveys through space and time: testing the space–time interaction in the absence of replication. Ecology, 91:262–272.

New article: Biology and conservation of Mediterranean sticklebacks

2010-01-19T00:18:00.012+01:00

Biology and habitat use of three-spined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) in intermittent Mediterranean streams.

The three-spined stickleback has one of the largest distribution ranges among freshwater fishes, being found in marine, brackish and freshwater environments in Eurasia and North America. Throughout its huge range, stickleback is often abundant and thus it is considered a non-threatened species. However, stickleback populations have steeply declined towards the species’ southern bounds, especially in Mediterranean areas. In the Iberian Peninsula the species is now considered as endangered, after experiencing multiple local extinction events.

In spite of this, until now there was an almost complete lack of information on the biology of Mediterranean sticklebacks. In this work we report the first available information on the biology and habitat use of stickleback in Mediterranean streams.

We first focused on growth, condition and reproduction of stickleback, using data from over 6000 measured fish that were captured along almost 100 fishing events throughout the year. We found that populations were strictly annual, with most adults dying immediately after their first reproduction and no evidence of survival up to the second reproduction season. Adult post reproduction mortality coincided with a period of extremely low somatic condition. Juveniles growth showed an almost complete stop during summer, when somatic condition was also low, but experienced a high and continuous growth during autumn, winter and early spring. This growth pattern differed from that of sticklebacks elsewhere, which usually stops in winter, and from that of other native species in Mediterranean streams, which does not show the summer growth stop.

We then analyzed stickleback habitat use using fyke nets during spring and summer in 118 sites. Stickleback populations were detected in 50 sites, occupying mainly intermediate locations along fluvial gradients. The presence of abundant aquatic vegetation was the main factor related with both stickleback presence and the abundance of its populations. This could be related the fact that male sticklebacks build nests, mainly from vegetation material, where they guard eggs from one or several females. Stickleback abundance was also negatively related with that of invasive fish and crayfish species. Stickleback tended to occur in native-dominated fish communities, being almost absent from lower stream reaches, which bear high abundances of invasive fish species.
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Clavero, M., Pou-Rovira, Q. & Zamora, L. (2009). Biology and habitat use of three-spined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) in intermittent Mediterranean streams. Ecology of Freshwater Fish 18: 550-559.

Book discussion posts in the blog

2010-01-15T00:19:00.005+01:00

ATLAS OF BIODIVERSITY RISK

The present Atlas of Biodiversity Risk is the first of its kind to describe and summarise in a comprehensive, easy-to-read and richly illustrated form the major pressures, impacts and risks of biodiversity loss at a global level. The main risks identified are caused by global climate and land use change, environmental pollution, loss of pollinators and biological invasions. The impacts and consequences of biodiversity loss are analyzed with a strong focus on socio-economic drivers and their effects on society. The Atlas is divided into sections which mostly deal with particular pressures. It is also based on case studies from a large set of countries, which are completed by introductory and concluding chapters for each section. Three scenarios of potential futures are the baseline for predicting impacts; the scenarios explore options for mitigating adverse effects at several spatio-temporal scales. Elements of these futures are modeled, tested and illustrated.

The Atlas combines the main outcomes of the large European project ALARM (performed by 68 partner organisations from 35 countries in Europe as well as from other continents) with some core results of numerous other research networks.

Josef Settele, Lyubomir Penev, Teodor Georgiev, Ralf Grabaum, Vesna Grobelnik, Volker Hammen, Stefan Klotz, Mladen Kotarac & Ingolf Kuhn (Eds) (2010)
Atlas of Biodiversity Risk. ISBN 978-954-642-446-4. Hardback, gross-format (310x360 mm), richly illustrated by maps, photos and figures, 300 pp. In English. Publication date: 22nd of May 2010.
Pre-publication price EUR 99.00
For more information on several discount options available by 31st of March 2010 look here!
Europe: surface mail delivery EUR 16, airmail delivery EUR 22;
Overseas: surface mail delivery EUR 19, airmail delivery EUR 26.
Table of contents | Sample pages | Larger cover | ORDER

New article: Associations between species and groups of sites

2010-01-11T23:26:00.012+01:00

Ecologists often face the task of studying the association between single species and one or several groups of sites representing habitat types, community types, or othercategories. Besides characterizing the ecological preference of the species, the strength of the association usually presents a lot of interest for conservation biology, landscape mapping andmanagement, and natural reserve design, among other applications. The indices most frequently employed to assess these relationships are the phi coefficient of association and theindicator value index (IndVal).

In this contribution in the journal Ecology, Miquel de Càceres and Pierre Legendre compare these two approaches by putting them into a broader framework of related measures, which includes several new indices.

They presentpermutation tests to assess the statistical significance of species–site group associations and bootstrap methods for obtaining confidence intervals. Two main types of measures exist: Correlation measures, such as the phi coefficient, are more context-dependent than indicator values but allow focusing on the preference of the species. In contrast, the two components of an indicator value index directly assess the value of the species as a bioindicator because they can be interpreted as its positive predictive value and sensitivity. Ecologists should select the most appropriate index of association strength according to their objective and then compute confidence intervals to determine the precision of the estimate.
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De Càceres, M. & Legendre, M. 2009. Associations between species and groups of sites: indices and statistical inference. Ecology, 90: 3566-3574.

Visit: Marco Moretti from WSL (Switzerland)

2009-11-22T18:21:00.005+01:00

Marco Moretti has visited the ECO-LAND lab the context of a collaboration with Miquel de Càceres.

The stay of Dr. Marco Moretti from the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL) in Switzerland has focussed on the development of community analyses aimed at determining cascade effects of fire across different invertebrate trophic groups.

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Visita del Dr. Marco Moretti del WSL a Suïssa en el marc d'una col.laboració amb en Miquel De Càceres

New article: Invasive pathways of the Argentine ant in a Mediterranean region

2009-11-10T17:12:00.007+01:00

From introduction to equilibrium: reconstructing the invasive pathways of the Argentine ant in a Mediterranean region.

Determining the geographical range of invasive species is an important component of formulating effective management strategies. In the absence of detailed distributional data, species’ distribution models can provide estimates of the geographic range of an invasion and also increase our understanding of the ecological processes acting at various spatial scales.

The aim of this study published in the journal of Global Change Biology together wiuth our colleagues of CIB in South Africa was to provide a better understanding of the geographic limits of a highly invasive species by combining ecological niche and dynamic spread modelling techniques. We provide new insights into the processes that influence the expansion of biological invasions, by using the Argentine ant (Linepithema humile) as a study case.

The methodological approach is composed of two major steps. Firstly, we calibrated a series of ecological niche models using occurrence and environmental data at various spatial scales (i.e. different extent and resolution), which allowed us to identify the most influential environmental factors and elucidate the status of the invasion by comparing final predictions. Secondly, we tested several hypotheses about the possible introduction of the species and its subsequent expansion at local by means of a spread model that simulated the jump dispersal of the species scales in Catalonia (NE Iberian Peninsula).

Based on the results of both modelling practices, we suggest that L. humile might have reached its maximum geographic range at regional scales in the NE Iberian Peninsula. However, the species does not appear in equilibrium with the environment at small spatial scales. The current distribution of the species seems to be mainly restricted to the major focus of introduction, coastal areas. Our simulations suggest that the species would have been introduced successfully at multiple coastal localities, although some inland localities could have also been invaded at an early stage of the invasion. Therefore, further expansions of L. humile into coastal and inland urban areas could be expected in the future.

Overall, the use of occurrence data at different spatial scales and the combination of these two modelling approaches provided new insights to the understanding of the Argentine ant invasion. It permitted us to evaluate the equilibrium status of the invasion, and infer hypotheses about the introduction of the species in the area and also to determine future patterns of spread.

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Des de la introducció a l'equilibri: reconstruïnt el procés d'invasió de la formiga argentina en una regió Mediterrània

Roura-Pascual, N., Bas, J.M., Thuiller, W., Hui, C. Krug, R.M. & Brotons, L. 2009. From introduction to equilibrium: reconstructing the invasive pathways of the Argentine ant in a Mediterranean region. Global Change Biology, 15:2101-2115.

PhD defence: Sara Vallecillo

2009-10-23T18:58:00.003+02:00

Sara Vallecillo will defend her PhD thesis on Decembre 18th in Solsona

Landscape changes and their effects on species distribution: modelling and application to the conservation of open habitat birds.

The defence will take place at the CTFC headquarters in Solsona.
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Tesi doctoral: Sara Vallecillo

El dia 18 de desembre la Sara Vallecillo llegirà la seva tesi doctoral.

Els canvis en el paistage i el seu efecte sobre la distribució de les espècies: modelització i aplicació a la conservació de les aus d'habitats oberts en paisatges Mediterranis.

La defensa tindrà lloc a la seu del CTFC a Solsona.

Blog news: Pictures from burnt areas in Catalonia

2009-10-22T17:47:00.005+02:00

Pictures from burnt areas sampled in the context of the DINDIS and BIOPRED projects.

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Fotos de zones cremades mostrejades en el context dels projectes DINDIS i BIOPRED.

Workshop: SCALES meeting in Solsona

2009-10-17T17:16:00.002+02:00

From November 17-19th there will be a meeting of the EU project Scales.

This meeting will take place at the CTFC headquarters in Solsona and will discuss the development of large scale biodiversity traits to be used in various modelling exercises.

MOBIMO: Application of niche-based modelling techniques to long-term common bird monitoring data

2009-10-08T13:09:00.004+02:00

New collaboration project started with the Gabriel Lippmann research center in Luxembourg.

The MOBIMO project lead by Dr. Nicolas Titeux will allow the recruitment of a PhD. student Olatz Aizpurua that will join the group from Luxembourg to deal with the applciation of predictive distribution models to the monitoring of biodiversity.

In the MOBIMO project, the following issues will be addressed using several datasets from different countries:

1. The monitoring programs provide us with a great deal of spatial data, but the extent to which those data appropriately reflect species distributions most likely depends on the species features, the survey methodologies, or both. For this reason, the appropriateness of bird survey data collected according to different methodologies and for a series of species associated with varying features is to be evaluated. In addition, different survey programs typically run in parallel in several countries and the relevance of combining the data they provide to generate niche-based models of species distribution is to be assessed.

2. The relevance of coupling monitoring and modelling approaches is to be evaluated in light of parameters related to the reproductive performance of the species, because these parameters are the ultimate indicators of the suitability of environmental conditions for the reproduction of the species (Titeux et al. 2007). This evaluation is of paramount importance before the results of the niche-based models can be used to document the sites that are the most suitable for the persistence of the species or to estimate the changes in species distribution that could happen in response to projected environmental changes (e.g. modifications in land use).

In the MOBIMO project, baseline bird survey information from Catalonia, Wallonia and Luxembourg will offers us the opportunity to address those issues and to ultimately evaluate the relevance of coupling bird survey data with environmental conditions through niche-based modelling of species distribution. The quality and the type of bird survey or environmental information data differ among these regions, which will enable us to compare the importance of the quality of baseline data and the application of different types of model validation procedures.

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Nova col.laboració en el marc del projecte MOBIMO amb el Gabriel Lippmann research center a Luxemburg.

El projecte MOBIMO liderat pel Dr. Nicolas Titeux permetrà la incorporació de la estudiant de doctorat Olatz Aizpurua que s'incorporarà al grup des de Luxemburg amb l'objectiu de desenvolupar aplicacions dels models predictius de distribució al monitorig de la biodiversitat.

New article: Threatened bird species booms in burnt areas

2009-10-08T12:50:00.007+02:00

Many farmland species are having bad times in Europe...but some are boosting in burnt areas. In this study with Swiss Colleagues from the University of Bern we analyse the habitat selection patterns of one of these species the Ortolan bunting in a recently burnt area in Catalonia.

The Ortolan Bunting Emberiza hortulana is a long-distance migrant that has suffered major population declines across much of its European breeding range. In contrast to northern populations, which are bound to farmland, Mediterranean populations are largely confined to habitats subject to recurrent wildfires. Habitat selection of the Ortolan Bunting was assessed in a recently burnt area in Catalonia at two spatial scales: landscape and meso-scale.

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A Zero-inflated Poisson procedure was used to model the abundance of birds in relation to habitat variables. The most parsimonious landscape-scale models predicted the highest abundance on south-facing slopes, with a gradient above 10°. The most parsimonious meso-scale habitat model showed a positive effect of bare ground and regenerating oak (Quercus spp.), with predicted optima for abundance around 20-30% and 20% cover, respectively. There was a clear relationship between predicted abundance of the Ortolan Bunting and post-fire regenerating oak shrubs. South-facing, moderately sloping areas were favoured and bare ground was a key feature of species’ habitat.

A matrix combining patches of sparse oak shrubs and patches of bare ground appears to be the optimal breeding habitat in the Mediterranean. The maintenance or provision of similar habitat features, especially patches of bare ground, may prove crucial for the conservation of rapidly declining Ortolan Bunting populations on farmland across temperate Europe.

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Espècies amenaçades en hàbitats agrícoles progressen adequadament en zones cremades

Moltes espècies de zones agrícoles estan experimental problemes en tota Europa...però algunes d'aquestes espècies estan augmentant les seves poblacions en zones afectades per grans incendis forestals. En aquest estudi amb col.legues suïssos de la University of Bern s'analitzen els patrons de selecció de l'hàbitat per una d'aquestes espècies, l'Ortolà en un incendi de la Catalunya central.

Menz, M.H., Brotons, L. & Arlettaz, R. 2009. Habitat selection by Ortolan Buntings Emberiza hortulana in post-fire succession in Catalonia: implications for the conservation of farmland populations. Ibis, 151:752-761.

New article: Patterns of distribution change and species population trends

2009-09-12T23:56:00.004+02:00

Looking at the shape of species distributions!

A new paper with our collaborators at the CEFE-CNRS in Montpellier has analysed the relationship between changes in distribution shapes and population trends in an area affected by strong land abandonment. The results indicate that the information contained on the shape of spatial distributions may give interesting clues about the fate of the population analysed. In our study, decreasing bird species shows strong fragmented patterns that became more fragmented as the decline process progressed. Our results on the relationships between changes in distribution and population trends stress the role in land use changes in driving these relationships at the landscape scale.

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Sirami, C., Brotons, L. & Martin, J.L. 2009. Do bird spatial distribution patterns reflect population trends in changing landscapes? Landscape Ecology, 24:893-906.

Ecochange summer school attended

2009-09-11T10:33:00.015+02:00

From 7th to 10th of September 2009 Dani Villero has assisted to the ECOCHANGE Summer School “Predictive habitat distribution models: tools for building projections of global change impact on biodiversity” at Laussane (Switzerland), organized by Antoine Guisan, Willfred Thuiller & Nick E. Zimmermann, and with the participation of Thomas Edwards, Stefan Dullinger, Martin Sykes. This summer school is an initiative of the FP6 ECOCHANGE project (http://www.ecochange-project.eu/), that proposes to improve a range of advanced modelling approaches that has been used so far to assess the impact of global change on biodiversity and ecosystems.

The ECOCHANGE Summer School has included a series of theoretical sessions about different aspects of the modeling process (Concepts and Principles, Data and sampling designs, Modelling Techniques, Model Evaluation, Uncertainty Analyses and Ensemble Forecasting), which have been supplemented by practical sessions with the R statistical free software and its different libraries, particularly the modeling package BIOMOD.
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Assistència al curs d'estiu ECOCHANGE

Del 7 al 10 de setembre Dani Villero ha assistit a l'escola d'estiu del projecte europeu ECOCHANGE "Models predictius de distribució de l'hàbitat: eines per construïr prediccions de l'impacte del canvi climàtic sobre la biodiversitat".

INOAC: Development of sound functional indicators of biodiversity change

2009-08-16T19:30:00.012+02:00

The INOAC project “Development of farmland biodiversity indicators from bird monitoring programs" has been completed. The project funded by Obra Social de la Caixa de Catalunya has been run in collaboration with the Catalan Ornithological Institute.

The project has been centered in the development of an effective methodology based on Gregory et al. . 2009 PLOSone to derive composite indicators of biodiversity change (i.e. for multiple species) for specific driving factors of environmental change. In our case, we have developed indicators of farmland abandonment, intensification and urbanisation. The project has mapped the current state of such driving factors at the catalan state using data from the Catalan Breeding Bird Atlas and has developed a way to monitor changes based on the common bird monitoring survey (SOCC) run by the ICO.

This information should serve for a better planning of conservation actions in farmland areas in a context of rapid environmentl change.

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INOAC: Desenvolupant indicadors funcionals de biodiversitat

S’ha finalitzat el projecte “Desenvolupament de bioindicadors de zones agrícoles generats a partir de programes de seguiment d’ocells” finançat per l’Obra Social de la Caixa de Catalunya i realitzat amb la col·laboració del Institut Català d’Ornitologia. Els índexs biològics e indicadors de biodiversitat són valors de síntesi d’informació complexa, que busquen la integració d’una forma estadísticament acurada de la informació disponible sobre les tendències en diferents components de la biodiversitat.

Aquest projecte a permès la definició de les bases tècniques i metodològiques que conformen diferents indicadors funcionals del Indicador d’Ocells Agrícoles de Catalunya (INOAC) a escala catalana. Així doncs, s’ha realitzat cartografia temàtica i s’ha avaluat les tendències de 3 indicadors funcionals relacionats amb els medis agrícoles:

Abandonament agrícola.
Intensificació.
Urbanització de terres agràries.

Aquests indicadors han de permetre avaluar l’estat de conservació de les zones agrícoles catalanes i coneixer millor els procesos de canvi que les afecten.

New article: Prominent role of invasive species on bird diversity loss at the global scale

2009-08-16T13:32:00.010+02:00

In this article published in the journal Biological Conservation, Miguel Clavero and coworkers have analysed the role of different threats to avian biodiversity at the global scale and found that invasive species have a major role in driving species loss and biotic homogenisation in this taxa.

The rise of extinction rates associated with human activities has led to a growing interest in identifying extinction-prone taxa and extinction-promoting drivers. Previous work has identified habitat alterations and invasive species as the major drivers of recent bird extinctions. Here, we have extended this work to ask how these human-driven impacts differentially affect extinction-prone taxa, and if any specific driver promotes taxonomic homogenization of avifauna.

Like most previous studies, our analysis is based on global information of extinction drivers affecting threatened and extinct bird species from the IUCN Red List. Unlike previous studies, we employ a multivariate statistical framework that allows us to identify the main gradients of variation in extinction drivers.

By using these gradients, we show that bird families with the highest extinction risk are primarily associated with threats posed by invasive species, once species richness and phylogeny are taken into account. As expected, the negative impact of invasive species
was higher on island species, but our results also showed that it was particularly high in those species with small distribution ranges. On the other hand, mainland species and island species with large ranges tended to be affected by habitat destruction. Thus the impacts of invasive species promote the process of taxonomic homogenization among islands and between islands and continents.

Consequently, introduced species may increase biotic homogenization not only directly, as generally believed, but also indirectly through their disproportional impact on endemic species imperilment.

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Nou article: Paper predominant de les espècies invasives en la pèrdia de biodiversitat aviar a escala global

En aquest article publicat a la revista anglesa Biological Conservation, Miguel Clavero i els seus companys han analitzat el paper de diferents amenaces a la biodiversitat aviar a escala global per trobar que l'amenaça derivada de les espècies invasores té un paper preponderant en la conducció de la pèrdua d'espècies i en el procés d'homogenització biòtica que s'està produïnt en aquest grup de vertebrats.

Clavero, M., Brotons, L., Pons, P. & Sol, D. 2009. Prominent role of invasive species in avian biodiversity loss. Biological Conservation, 142:2043-2049.

7th Conference of the European Ornithologist's Union, Switzerland

2009-08-07T00:05:00.008+02:00

Between 21 to 26th August, Lluís Brotons will attend the 7th conference of the EOU in Zurich Switzerland.

Lluís Brotons has been invited as a keynote speaker to the symposium
"Advances in ornithological knowledge through species distribution modelling".

The presentation, entitled "Predicting bird distribution in mediterranean dynamic landscapes in a context of global change: challenges and the way forward" will review the advances in the comprenhension of the key mechanisms behind the responses of species distribution to changes in Mediterranean landscapes driven by land abandonment and fire.

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Entre els propers 21 i 26 d'agost, Lluís Brotons assistirà a la 7a conferència de la EOU (Unió Europea d'Ornitòlegs) a Zurich Suissa com a convidat a un dels simposis organitzats.

PhD defence: Assu Gil-Tena

2009-07-11T00:16:00.012+02:00

Assu Gil-Tena successfully defended her PhD on July 21st

Factors behind richness, distribution and dynamics of forest birds at the landscape scale in Catalonia : implications for sustainable forest management.

The defence took place at ETSEA in Lleida.

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Tesi doctoral: Assu Gil- Tena

El dia 21 de juliol l'Assu Gil-Tena va llegir la seva tesi doctoral.

Factors determinants de la riquesa, distribució, i dinàmica de les aus forestals a escala de paisatge a Catalunya: implicacions per a la gestió forestal sostenible.

La defensa va tenir lloc a l'ETSEA de Lleida.

Stay at the University of Queensland

2009-07-10T20:47:00.006+02:00

Stay at the University of Queensland.

Sara Vallecillo has completed a five month stay (jan-june, 2009) at the spatial ecology lab of Hugh Possingham in Brisbane, Australia. Thiis lab is part of the AEDA research center (Applied Environmental Decision Analysis). During this stay we have been investigating the integration of fire risk and landscape dynamics in the process of optimal reserve design. Landscapes are likely to change in the future and the integration of uncertainty in conservation planning is one of key challenges ahead.

Spatial ecology lab at the University of Queensland

Stay at the University of Toronto

2009-07-10T20:40:00.003+02:00

Integration of the MEDFIRE landscape and species distribution models

During two weeks (18/6-30/6) Lluís Brotons and Miquel de Cáceres have joined Mariee-Jossé Fortin and Andrew Fall in Toronto in order to work on the development of new approaches to develop more sound approaches to build dynamic species distribution models. These efforts are part of the BIOPRED and CONSOLIDER-MONTES project developed at the Eco-land lab.

Spatial Ecology lab at the University of Toronto

New article: Large scale forest change and bird dynamics

2009-04-04T23:56:00.006+02:00

In this new article, Assu Gil and coworkers have been analysing bird change data and forest dynamics estimated from forest inventory data and conclude that forest maturation is currently driving forest bird distribution changes at the regional scale in Catalonia.

Processes derived from global change such as land-use changes, climate warming or modifications in the perturbation regime may have opposite effects on forest extent and structure with still unknown consequences on forest biodiversity at large spatial scales. In the present study, we aimed at determining forest dynamics associated with global change processes (forest spread, maturation and fire) that have driven the variation in forest bird distributions in Mediterranean forest ecosystems in recent years.

Forest bird distribution changes showed strong spatial patterns and appeared to be related to population processes occurring beyond sampling units. Forest maturation appeared as the most important driver of such changes because most of the studied species have a non-Mediterranean origin and are associated with more mature forests. Our results indicate that large-scale forest maturation and spread mainly due to land abandonment in Catalonia has overridden the potentially negative effects of fires on forest bird distributions and are currently driving changes in forest biodiversity patterns across the region.

Gil-Tena, A., Brotons, L. & Saura, S. 2009. Mediterranean forest dynamics and forest bird distribution changes in the late 20th century. Global Change Biology, 15:474-485

PCISB: Biodiversity conservation in protected areas

2009-03-15T00:00:00.003+01:00

Biodiversity conservation and monitoring in protected areas

We have initiated an exciting new project: Biodiversity and monitoring of biodiversit of natural protected areas (ENPE) in Catalonia. This project is promoted by the Parcs service of the General direction of the natural environment of the Catalan government. The main objective of the project is the definition of management actions and conservation priorities for 12 protected nature sites in Catalonia. The project aims at clearly identify the targer biodiversity elements of interest, adequate monitoring strategies and an appropiate action plan for each of the nature sites under examination.

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Conservació de la biodiversitat i seguiment en àrees protegides

S’ha iniciat la redacció dels Plans de Conservació i Seguiment de la Biodiversitat dels Espais Naturals de Protecció Especial (ENPE) de Catalunya. Aquest projecte, promogut pel Servei de Parcs de la Direcció General de Medi Natural i el seu objectiu es definir les accions i prioritats de conservació de 12 ENPE de Catalunya, identificant clarament quin són els elements de biodiversitat prioritaris en cada espai, els indicadors del seu estat de conservació i el pla d’actuacions de conservació i gestió associat per garantir-ne la seva conservació i recuperació. Aquests plans han de ser el full de ruta en relació a la conservació de la biodiversitat per als propers 6 anys de tots els Parcs Naturals de Catalunya.

New article: Distribution models may fail when apply in a temporal perspective

2009-03-10T19:06:00.004+01:00

Species distribution models should be used with caution!

Land-cover changes from the last decades are leading to important declines in habitat quality, giving rise to changes in bird species distribution all over the world. However, land-cover changes result from a variety of different processes, and it is not clear how effective species distribution models are in capturing species responses to these changes. In this study, we evaluated our ability to predict the effects of land-cover changes on shifts in species distributions at large spatial and temporal scales using Mediterranean landscapes and early-successional, open-habitat birds as study models.

We developed accurate model projections of current and past global patterns of species distribution, but our ability to predict species distribution dynamics was reduced. Colonization dynamics were generally more strongly related to fire descriptors than to changes in overall habitat suitability derived from land-cover changes. Our results warn of the dangers of projecting species distribution models onto future conditions if processes behind species distribution dynamics are not explicitly included. Consideration of ecologically meaningful processes for species (i.e., fire disturbance) when modeling species' distribution might contribute to a better explanation of species' colonization dynamics.

Vallecillo, S., Brotons, L. & Thuiller, W. 2009. Dangers of predicting bird species distributions in response to land-cover changes. Ecological Applications, 19:538-549.

SCALES: A new EU project on Biodiversity

2009-03-10T18:51:00.003+01:00

The Eco-land lab gets involved in a new EU funded project in partnership with the European Bird Census Council (http://www.ebcc.info/).

Biodiversity and its effective management are inextricably related to scale. The main pressures on Europe’s terrestrial biodiversity and the socio-economic drivers behind these pressures act differently at different scales. Effective conservation measures must thus explicitly consider a) scales at which effects occur and b) any interactions among the pressures that cause non-linearities among and within the different scales. The SCALES project is designed to provide the integrated, natural and social scientific research needed to guide such action.

SCALES will advance and integrate our understanding of natural and anthropogenic processes and their effects upon biodiversity at different scales by applying recent methodological advances to new and existing data and by the development of new methods and approaches for innovative analyses of biodiversity processes and data across scales, of how these processes interact across scales and affect biodiversity, and of how this knowledge can be used to improve the scale-sensitivity and scale effectiveness of policy instruments for conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity.

The Eco-land lab will be involved in different work-packages mainly regarding the investigation of new approaches to integrate heterogeneous, large-scale monitoring data into meaningful information to be used for conservation planning at different spatial scales.

http://www.scales-project.net/

CONSOLIDER-MONTES: global change impacts on forests

2009-02-28T23:50:00.005+01:00

The project MONTES started in december 2008. The kick-off meeting took place in Barcelona (UAB) between 12-13 february 2009.

The MONTES program brings together researchers from 9 research groups: two from public centers that conduct research into forestry and environmental issues (CREAF, CTFC), two from the CSIC (EBD, ICTJA), three from Spanish universities (UB, UCLM, UGR), one from CIEMAT and one mixed university-CSIC group (IRN-URJC), making a total of 71 doctors altogether.

The aim of this proposal is to create a competitive platform at national and international level in order to examine the environmental contribution of Spanish woodlands to analyze their relationship with the components of global change, and to identify opportunities to modify these components through appropriate management. The general objective of the program is to determine how to effectively integrate woodland management (including non-management options) into strategies aimed at adapting and mitigating global change.

The program is organized around three main themes: (1) analysis of the influence of global change on the structure and function of woodlands; (2) study of the role of woodlands on the mitigation of global change effects; and (3) modification through management of the effects of global change on woodlands and vice versa. The program is structured around eight work packages. (1) interactions with the atmosphere; (2) changes in carbon fixation; (3) changes in the distribution of species caused by climate change; (4) water availability; (5) consequences of land use change and fragmentation on species; (6) species vulnerability to fire and the preventive management of large-scale fires; (7) biological invasions and consequences to biodiversity.

A fundamental aspect of the program is that it stresses not only mankind’s active role in enhancing global change, but also recognizes mankind’s opportunities to mitigate this change. Other fundamental aspects of this proposal are the international projection of the research team, as well as its cohesion and training capacity.

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El projecte MONTES i el canvi global en sistemes forestals

El projecte MONTES (Els sistemes naturals terrestres espanyols i el canvi global: amenaces i oportunitats) va començar oficialment el desembre del 2008.

El veritable tret de sortida, però, el va marcar la reunió conjunta celebrada a la UAB els dies 12 i 13 de febrer.

El passat juliol, la Secretaria d’Estat d’Universitats i Recerca del Govern espanyol va resoldre concedir, a través del programa Consolider-Ingenio 2010, un ajut de quatre milions d’euros al projecte MONTES, Els sistemes naturals terrestres espanyols i el canvi global: amenaces i oportunitats. Coordinat des del CREAF i amb una durada de cinc anys, el projecte té com a principal objectiu estudiar la interacció entre el canvi global i els sistemes naturals terrestres, així com els mecanismes per adaptar-ne la gestió amb vistes a mitigar els efectes d’aquest canvi. En total hi participen 77 investigadors de nou centres de recerca capdavanters de l’Estat espanyol: el CREAF, la Universitat de Barcelona, la Universitat de Castella-la Manxa, la Universitat de Granada, l’Estació Biològica de Doñana (CSIC), l’Institut de Diagnòstic Ambiental i Estudis de l’Aigua (CSIC), l’Institut de Recursos Naturals (CSIC) – Universitat Rey Juan Carlos, el Centre Tecnològic Forestal de Catalunya i el Centre d’Investigacions Energètiques, Ambientals i Tecnològiques (CIEMAT).

A la trobada van assistir-hi més de 70 investigadors d’una desena de centres de recerca, fonamentalment espanyols. Hi estaven representats molts dels grups de recerca més actius en ecologia terrestre del nostre país. Aquesta capacitat de mobilització és per si mateixa un èxit, i una clara mostra del gran interès que suscita MONTES, no només al CTFC sinó també a la resta d’institucions implicades.

CARTOBIO: Entering the third year

2009-02-10T21:01:00.001+01:00

Applications of species distribution modelling

The CARTOBIO project developed by the Eco-land lab for the Catalan Government (DMAH) has entered its third year.

The project aims at developing specific mapping applications for a number of species and taxa. These maps are then used by managers and planners for conflict solving and biodiversity planning duties.

CARTOBIO

New article: Land abandonment in the Mediterranean and changes in bird distributions

2008-08-26T23:06:00.002+02:00

Land abandonment is driving recent birds population changes in the North –western Mediterranean.

A new article in the journal Biological Conservation issued from the collaboration with the Montpellier group lead by Jean Louis Martin and Clelia Sirami and Bird Life (Ian Burfield) has analysed a set of studies on recent bird population changes in the north-western Mediterranean region.

By means of data integration through meta-analyses, the results shown the footprint of land abandonment and vegetation recovery as species of open habitats especially from farmland have tended to decreased. This was especially strong for migratory farmland species on farmland dominated landscapes suggesting that declines in these species are likely to be caused by a variety of mechanisms interacting with habitat change in the breeding season, the main driver of bird population change in the area. At the same time species of forests have generally increased over the region.

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Sirami, C., Brotons, L., Burfield, I., Fonderflick, J. & Martin, J.L. 2008. Is land abandonment having an impact on biodiversity? A meta-analytical approach to bird distribution changes in the north-western Mediterranean. Biological Conservation, 141:450-459.

Projecte SITXELL

2008-07-05T01:14:00.000+02:00

El Sistema d'Informació Territorial de la xarxa d'espais lliures (SITxell) és un eina d'informació geogràfica per a l'anàlisi i valoració del conjunt dels sòls no urbanitzables de la província de Barcelona. El SITxell, elaborat a escala 1:50.000 en l'entorn ArcGIS, conté informació de base sobre el medi natural i els usos del territori, així com cobertures de diagnosi i avaluació produïdes per equips d'experts. L'objectiu final és la incorporació dels atributs i valors dels elements i processos vinculats al sistema d'espais lliures en la presa de decisions territorials del conjunt d'administracions locals.

http://www.diba.es/parcsn/parcs/index.asp?Parc=18