Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-18T21:43:01.008Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Landscape correlates of anuran functional connectivity in rice crops: a graph-theoretic approach

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 March 2019

Joana Ribeiro*
Affiliation:
CIBIO/InBIO, Centro de Investigação em Biodiversidade e Recursos Genéticos da Universidade do Porto, Campus Agrário de Vairão, R. Padre Armando Quintas, 4485-661 Vairão, Portugal CEABN/InBIO, Centro de Ecologia Aplicada, Instituto Superior de Agronomia, Universidade de Lisboa, Tapada da Ajuda, 1349-017 Lisboa, Portugal Department of Biology & CESAM, University of Aveiro, Campus de Santiago, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal
Guarino R. Colli
Affiliation:
Departamento de Zoologia, Universidade de Brasília, 70910-900 Brasília, DF, Brazil
Amadeu Soares
Affiliation:
Department of Biology & CESAM, University of Aveiro, Campus de Santiago, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal

Abstract

Habitat fragmentation is a major cause of biodiversity loss in agricultural landscapes. Studying habitat connectivity in fragmented landscapes is therefore pivotal for better understanding the factors that shape faunal communities in anthropogenic landscapes. Amphibians have limited dispersal abilities, strong site fidelity and often perform seasonal movements to reach relatively distant breeding habitats. This calls for a better knowledge of which landscape features might promote dispersal, especially in crops. We applied graph-theoretic network analyses to a set of 35 waterbodies embedded in 10 rice fields in a savanna–rain forest ecotone, Tocantins, Brazil, to assess the importance of landscape features (forest patches, waterbodies) for anuran functional connectivity within the entire network. We used taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic diversity as proxies of anuran functional connectivity (i.e. dispersal ability intrinsic to the taxa), based on previous associations uncovered between species diversity metrics and landscape connectivity. We found that, assuming individuals belonging to each of the 14 amphibian species recorded are unable to disperse over 800 m, forest and waterbody area and abundance are the most important predictors of waterbody importance for connectivity. Hence, pond network connectivity for amphibians in rice crops depends on (1) abundant and large forest patches in the area surrounding waterbodies, and (2) a network of abundant waterbodies.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Literature cited

Alvares, CA, Stape, JL, Sentelhas, PC, De Moraes Gonçalves, JL and Sparovek, G (2013) Köppen’s climate classification map for Brazil. Meteorologische Zeitschrift 22, 711728.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bailey, D, Schmidt-Entling, MH, Eberhart, P, Herrmann, JD, Hofer, G, Kormann, U and Herzog, F (2010) Effects of habitat amount and isolation on biodiversity in fragmented traditional orchards. Journal of Applied Ecology 47, 10031013.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bennett, AF (1990) Habitat corridors and the conservation of small mammals in a fragmented forest environment. Landscape Ecology 4, 109122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boissinot, A, Grillet, P, Besnard, A and Lourdais, O (2015) Small woods positively influence the occurrence and abundance of the common frog (Rana temporaria) in a traditional farming landscape. Amphibia Reptilia 36, 417424.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Botta-Dukát, Z (2005) Rao’s quadratic entropy as a measure of functional diversity based on multiple traits. Journal of Vegetation Science 16, 533540.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burnham, KP, Anderson, DR, Anderson, KP and Burnham, DA (2002) Model Selection and Multimodel Inference: A Practical Information-Theoretic Approach. (2nd edn). New York: Springer Verlag.Google Scholar
Cascante, A, Quesada, M, Lobo, JJ and Fuchs, EA (2002) Effects of dry tropical forest fragmentation on the reproductive success and genetic structure of the tree Samanea saman. Conservation Biology 16, 137147.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cunningham, JM, Calhoun, AJK and Glanz, WE (2007) Pond-breeding amphibian species richness and habitat selection in a beaver-modified landscape. Journal of Wildlife Management 71, 25172526.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dyer, RJ, Chan, DM, Gardiakos, VA and Meadows, CA (2012) Pollination graphs: quantifying pollen pool covariance networks and the influence of intervening landscape on genetic connectivity in the North American understory tree, Cornus florida L. Landscape Ecology 27, 239251.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ewers, RM and Didham, RK (2006) Confounding factors in the detection of species responses to habitat fragmentation. Biological Reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society 81, 117142.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fahrig, L (2003) Effects of habitat fragmentation on biodiversity. Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution and Systematics 31, 487515.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frost, DR, Grant, T, Faivovich, J, Bain, RH, Haas, A, Haddad, CFB, De Sá, RO, Channing, A, Wilkinson, M, Donnellan, SC, Raxworthy, CJ, Campbell, JA, Blotto, BL, Moler, P, Drewes, RC, Nussbaum, RA, Lynch, JD, Green, DM and Wheeler, WC (2006) The amphibian tree of life. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 297, 1291.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gamble, LR, McGarigal, K and Compton, BW (2007) Fidelity and dispersal in the pond-breeding amphibian, Ambystoma opacum: implications for spatio-temporal population dynamics and conservation. Biological Conservation 139, 247257.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibbs, JP (1993) Importance of small wetlands for the persistence of local populations of wetland-associated animals. Wetlands 13, 2531.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibbs, JP and Shriver, WG (2005) Can road mortality limit populations of pool-breeding amphibians? Wetlands Ecology and Management 13, 281289.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gilbert-Norton, L, Wilson, R, Stevens, JR and Beard, KH (2010) A meta-analytic review of corridor effectiveness. Conservation Biology 24, 660668.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gonzalez, A, Lawton, JH, Gilbert, FS, Blackburn, TM and Evans-Freke, I (1998) Metapopulation dynamics, abundance, and distribution in a microecosystem. Science 281, 20452047.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grime, JP (2006) Trait convergence and trait divergence in herbaceous plant communities: mechanisms and consequences. Journal of Vegetation Science 17, 255260.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henle, K, Davies, KF, Kleyer, M, Margules, C and Settele, J (2004) Predictors of species sensitivity to fragmentation. Biodiversity and Conservation 13, 207251.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Irion, G, Nunes, GM, Nunes-Da-Cunha, C, De Arruda, EC, Santos-Tambelini, M, Dias, AP, Morais, JO and Junk, WJ (2016) Araguaia river floodplain: size, age, and mineral composition of a large tropical savanna wetland. Wetlands 36, 945956.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Janin, A, Léna, J-P, Ray, N, Delacourt, C, Allemand, P and Joly, P (2009) Assessing landscape connectivity with calibrated cost-distance modelling: predicting common toad distribution in a context of spreading agriculture. Journal of Applied Ecology 46, 833841.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jost, L (2007) Partitioning diversity into independent alpha and beta components. Ecology 88, 24272439.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Keller, D, Brodbeck, S, Flöss, I, Vonwil, G and Holderegger, R (2010) Ecological and genetic measurements of dispersal in a threatened dragonfly. Biological Conservation 143, 26582663.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kéry, M, Royle, JA and Schmid, H (2005) Modeling avian abundance from replicated counts using binomial mixture models. Ecological Applications 15, 14501461.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kovar, R, Brabec, M, Vita, R and Bocek, R (2009) Spring migration distances of some Central European amphibian species. Amphibia-Reptilia 30, 367378.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, S, Josse, J and Husson, F (2008) FactoMineR : an R package for multivariate analysis. Journal of Statistical Software 25, 118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lemckert, F (2004) Variations in anuran movements and habitat use: implications for conservation. Applied Herpetology 1, 165181.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liira, J, Schmidt, T, Aavik, T, Arens, P, Augenstein, I, Bailey, D, Billeter, R, Bukáček, R, Burel, F, De Blust, G, De Cock, R, Dirksen, J, Edwards, PJ, Hamerský, R, Herzog, F, Klotz, S, Kühn, I, Le Coeur, D, Miklová, P, Roubalova, M, Schweiger, O, Smulders, MJMM, Van Wingerden, WKRERE, Bugter, R and Zobel, M (2008) Plant functional group composition and large-scale species richness in European agricultural landscapes. Journal of Vegetation Science 19, 314.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marsh, DM, Fegraus, EH and Harrison, S (1999) Effects of breeding pond isolation on the spatial and temporal dynamics of pond use by the tungara frog, Physalaemus pustulosus. Journal of Animal Ecology 68, 804814.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martins, SV, Brito, ER, De Oliveira Filho, AT, Da Silva, AF and Silva, E (2008) Floristic composition of two wetland forests in Araguaian plain, state of Tocantins, Brazil, and comparison with other areas. Revista Árvore 32, 129141.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mazerolle, MJ, Bailey, LL, Kendall, WL, Andrew Royle, J, Converse, SJ and Nichols, JD (2007) Making great leaps forward: accounting for detectability in herpetological field studies. Journal of Herpetology 41, 672689.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Neel, M (2008) Patch connectivity and genetic diversity conservation in the federally endangered and narrowly endemic plant species Astragalus albens (Fabaceae). Biological Conservation 141, 938955.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Niemi, GJ and McDonald, ME (2004) Application of ecological indicators. Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics 35, 89111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Noss, RF (2003) A Checklist for wildlands network designs. Conservation Biology 17, 12701275.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Olalla-Tárraga, , McInnes, L, Bini, LM, Diniz-Filho, JAF, Fritz, SA, Hawkins, BA, Hortal, J, Orme, CDL, Rahbek, C, Rodríguez, and Purvis, A (2011) Climatic niche conservatism and the evolutionary dynamics in species range boundaries: global congruence across mammals and amphibians. Journal of Biogeography 38, 22372247.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Olalla-Tárraga, M.Á, Diniz-Filho, JAF, Bastos, RP and Rodríguez, (2009) Geographic body size gradients in tropical regions: water deficit and anuran body size in the Brazilian CerradoEcography 32, 581590.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Popescu, VD and Hunter, ML (2011) Clear-cutting affects habitat connectivity for a forest amphibian by decreasing permeability to juvenile movements. Ecological Applications 21, 12831295.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rhodes, JR, McAlpine, CA, Zuur, AF, Smith, GM and Ieno, EN (2009) GLMM applied on the spatial distribution of koalas in a fragmented landscape. In Zuur, AF, Ieno, EN, Walker, NJ, Saveliev, AA and Smith, GM (eds), Mixed Effects Models and Extensions in Ecology with R. New York: Springer, pp. 469492.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ribeiro, J, Colli, GR, Caldwell, JP, Ferreira, E, Batista, R and Soares, A. (2017) Evidence of neotropical anuran community disruption on rice crops: a multidimensional evaluation. Biodiversity and Conservation 26, 33633383.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ribeiro, R, Carretero, MA, Sillero, N, Alarcos, G, Ortiz-Santaliestra, M, Lizana, M and Llorente, GA (2011) The pond network: can structural connectivity reflect on (amphibian) biodiversity patterns? Landscape Ecology 26, 673682.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Risser, PG, Karr, JR and Forman, RTT (1984) Landscape Ecology: Directions and Approaches. Illinois Natural History Survey Special Publication 2. Champaign, Illinois.Google Scholar
Rothermel, BB (2004) Migratory success of juveniles: a potential constraint on connectivity for pond-breeding amphibians. Ecological Applications 14, 15351546.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rothermel, BB and Semlitsch, RD (2002) An experimental investigation of landscape resistance of forest versus old-field habitats to emigrating juvenile amphibians. Conservation Biology 16, 13241332.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Saura, S and Pascual-Hortal, L (2007) A new habitat availability index to integrate connectivity in landscape conservation planning: comparison with existing indices and application to a case study. Landscape and Urban Planning 83, 91103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Saura, S and Torné, J (2009) Conefor Sensinode 2.2: a software package for quantifying the importance of habitat patches for landscape connectivity. Environmental Modelling & Software 24, 135139.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schulz, BK, Bechtold, WA and Zarnoch, SJ (2009) Sampling and estimation procedures for the vegetation diversity and structure indicator. U S Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station General Technical Report PNW-GTR. US Forest Service, USA.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Semlitsch, RD (2002) Critical elements for biologically based recovery plans of aquatic-breeding amphibians. Conservation Biology 16, 619629.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, MA and Green, DM (2005) Dispersal and the metapopulation paradigm in amphibian ecology and conservation: are all amphibian populations metapopulations? Ecography 28, 110128.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sodhi, NS, Bickford, D, Diesmos, AC, Lee, TM, Koh, LP, Brook, BW, Sekercioglu, CH and Bradshaw, CJA (2008) Measuring the meltdown: drivers of global amphibian extinction and decline. PLoS ONE 3, 18.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tewksbury, JJ, Levey, DJ, Haddad, NM, Sargent, S, Orrock, JL, Weldon, A, Danielson, BJ, Brinkerhoff, J, Damschen, EI and Townsend, P (2002) Corridors affect plants, animals, and their interactions in fragmented landscapes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 99, 1292312926.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tischendorf, L and Fahrig, L (2000) On the usage and measurement of landscape connectivity. Oikos 90, 719.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Valente, CR, Latrubesse, EM and Ferreira, LG (2013) Relationships among vegetation, geomorphology and hydrology in the Bananal island tropical wetlands, Araguaia river basin, central Brazil. Journal of South American Earth Sciences 46, 150160.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Geert, A, Van Rossum, F and Triest, L (2010) Do linear landscape elements in farmland act as biological corridors for pollen dispersal? Journal of Ecology 98, 178187.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weiher, E (2011) A primer of trait and functional diversity. In Magurran, AE and McGill, BJ (eds), Biological Diversity: Frontiers in Measurement and Assessment. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, pp. 175193.Google Scholar