Mapping habitats sensitive to overgrazing in the Swiss Northern Alps using habitat suitability modeling

Détails

ID Serval
serval:BIB_2A44E3FB9E79
Type
Article: article d'un périodique ou d'un magazine.
Collection
Publications
Institution
Titre
Mapping habitats sensitive to overgrazing in the Swiss Northern Alps using habitat suitability modeling
Périodique
Biological Conservation
Auteur⸱e⸱s
Fragnière Yann, Gremaud Jérôme, Pesenti Elias, Bétrisey Sébastien, Petitpierre Blaise, Guisan Antoine, Kozlowski Gregor
ISSN
0006-3207
Statut éditorial
Publié
Date de publication
10/2022
Peer-reviewed
Oui
Volume
274
Pages
109742
Langue
anglais
Résumé
The Swiss Northern Alps are rich in biodiversity, including some subalpine and alpine natural herbaceous communities of high biogeographic and conservation value. At the northwestern edge of the Alps, such habitats are refugia for slow-growing, locally rare, and cold-adapted species, which are sensitive to sheep overgrazing. However, at a regional scale, no map of these sensitive habitats exists that the authorities could refer to for regulating grazing. We therefore studied the possibility of using ecological niche modeling (ENM) to map five habitats that are potentially threatened by overgrazing in the Northern Alps of the Swiss canton of Fribourg. For each habitat, we defined a group of characteristic species and gathered their occurrences from national data centers. These occurrences were pooled within each group and used as presences to calibrate the ENM. High-resolution predictors (10 m) were used to achieve fine-scale modeling. The models predicted accurate and ecologically relevant distributions for three of the habitats: alpine swards and heaths on exposed ridges and peaks, unstable calcareous screes and vegetated snow patches. These results show that habitats that are topographically and environmentally well-defined can be finely predicted by ENM using distributions of characteristic species for use in spatial conservation planning. In the context of summer pasture management, this helped us to translate the Swiss legal basis onto maps of authorized grazing pressure
Mots-clé
Nature and Landscape Conservation, Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
Web of science
Open Access
Oui
Création de la notice
14/09/2022 14:00
Dernière modification de la notice
11/07/2023 5:55
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