Search Results

Ponds contribute substantially to the maintenance of regional biodiversity. Despite a growing body of literature on biotic-abiotic relationships in ponds, only few generalizations have been made. The difficulty in identifying the main drivers of pond biodiversity has been typically attributed to the heterogeneity of the local and regional conditions characterizing ponds. However, little is known on how the use of different analytical approaches and community response variables affects the results of analysis of community patterns in ponds. Here, we used a range of methods to model the response of water beetle and plant community data (species richness and composition) to a set of 12 environmental and management variables in 45 farmland ponds. The strength of biotic-abiotic relationships and the contribution of each variable to the overall explained variance in the reduced models varied substantially, for both plants and beetles, depending on the method used to analyze the data. Models of species richness included a lower number of variables and explained a larger amount of variation compared to models of species composition, reflecting the higher complexity characterizing multispecies response matrices. Only two variables were never selected by any of the model, indicative of the heterogeneity characterizing pond ecosystems, while some models failed to select important variables. Based on our findings, we recommend the use of multiple modeling approaches when attempting to identify the principal determinants of biodiversity for each response variable, including at least a non-parametric approach, as well as the use of both species richness and composition as the response variables. The results of this modeling exercise are discussed in relation to their practical use in the formulation of conservation strategies.

Invasion by alien plant species may be rapid and aggressive, causing erosion of local biodiversity. This is particularly true for islands, where natural and anthropogenic corridors promote the rapid spread of invasive plants. Although evidence shows that corridors may facilitate plant invasions, the question of how their importance in the spread of alien species varies along environmental gradients deserves more attention. Here, we addressed this issue by examining diversity patterns (species richness of endemic, native and alien species) along and across roads, along an elevation gradient from sea-level up to 2050 m a.s.l. in Tenerife (Canary Islands, Spain), at multiple spatial scales. Species richness was assessed using a multi-scale sampling design consisting of 59 T-transects of 150 m × 2 m, along three major roads each placed over the whole elevation gradient. Each transect was composed of three sections of five plots each: Section 1 was located on the road edges, Section 2 at intermediate distance, and Section 3 far from the road edge, the latter representing the “native community” less affected by road-specific disturbance. The effect of elevation and distance from roadsides was evaluated for the three groups of species (endemic, native and alien species), using parametric and non-parametric regression analyses as well as additive diversity partitioning. Differences among roads explained the majority of the variation in alien species richness and composition. Patterns in alien species richness were also affected by elevation, with a decline in richness with increasing elevation and no alien species recorded at high elevations. Elevation was the most important factor determining patterns in endemic and native species. These findings confirm that climate filtering reflected in varying patterns along elevational gradients is an important determinant of the richness of alien species (which are not adapted to high elevations), while anthropogenic pressures may explain the richness of alien species at low elevation.