Habitat quality assessment of Atlantic wet heathlands in Serra do Xistral, NW Spain

The assessment of habitat quality, especially in semi-natural managed systems, provides a powerful tool for monitoring short and long-term conservation actions. The Erica mackayana Atlantic wet heathlands of the Serra do Xistral protected area in Galicia, NW Spain, represent a dynamic system with high conservation value associated to traditional management through grazing of free-ranging cattle and wild ponies. Here, we aimed to develop a spatially-explicit, quantitative method for Habitat Quality Assessment, defining an optimum state and the alternative states that may arise from habitat degradation. Vegetation structure, grass-shrub cover ratio, gorse cover, presence of bracken, exotic species such as pine trees and saplings, erosive events and altered hydrological dynamics were identified as the main indicators of habitat degradation. A heterogeneous vegetation structure with a dominant shrub cover of c.0.5 m height and constant gaps among shrubs, with a limited cover of gorse and absence of pine trees, bramble and bracken, and absence of erosive events was recognized as the optimum state. We applied the Habitat Quality Assessment (HQA) method to a pilot area within the Xistral protected site. Wet heathland was the dominant habitat, covering 37.1% of the area. 7.0% of the assessed heathlands were recognized as in the optimum state for habitat quality. Recommendations are made for habitat management to revert low scores, mainly by the adjustment of livestock numbers and the removal of exotic pine trees.

Impact Assessment of Habitat and Hydromorphological Alterations in Two Heavily Modified Lakes

A description of hydromorphological pressures is required by the Water Framework Directive, however, there is not a commonly accepted assessment method. This study aims to explore a description tool application, not used before in Greece, for the quantification of the human impact extent on natural environment. Thus, in lakes Kastoria and Pamvotis, the Lake Habitat Survey was applied in the field and remotely to map the pressures, to examine confidence, suitability and ease of applicability through plot quantitative description, to calculate the “Lake Habitat Quality Assessment”, “Lake Habitat Modification Score” and “Alteration of Lake Morphology Score” indices.

Effects of plant defenses and water availability on seasonal foraging preferences of the Nubian Ibex (Capra nubiana)

The study of herbivore patch use has implications for herbivore habitat quality assessment, foraging behaviors, species interactions, and coexistence in patchy environments. This research focuses on the comparison of the effects of two qualitatively different plant defenses, mechanical (thorns) and chemical (tannins), on ibex foraging preferences during different seasons of the year. The occurrence of both chemical and mechanical plant defenses were experimentally manipulated in artificial resource patches, in addition to water availability. Ibex foraging preferences were quantified using giving-up densities during four separate fieldwork sessions in each of the seasons of the year at cliff sites overlooking the Zin Valley of the Negev Highlands. Both mechanical and chemical plant defenses significantly hindered ibex food intake overall. Mechanical and chemical defenses acted as substitutable defenses, meaning that their combined effects were not greater than additive. There were strong seasonal patterns of the amount of food consumed by ibex, further corroborated by comparison to rainfall levels. Seasonality also interacted with the effectiveness of plant defenses. Thorns were especially ineffective in summer, whereas tannins were most effective in spring. Decreases in seasonal food availability and increased marginal value of energy for ibex may have resulted in thorn ineffectiveness, while seasonal changes in the emergence of young foliage may have resulted in the greater springtime tannin effectiveness. Water was not found to mitigate the detrimental effects of tannins through dilution. The implications for decreased constraints on selective pressures on ibex due to the substitutability of plant defenses are discussed.

Landscape Factors Influencing Diversity of Habitat Conditions Across a Watercourse in the Vicinity of Tomaszów Lubelski City in the Roztocze Region (Poland)

The aim of the study was a hydromorphological valorisation of the river valley in the Roztocze region using the British method - River Habitat Survey (RHS). As a result of field research two numerical indicators HMS (Habitat Modification Score) and HQA (Habitat Quality Assessment) were identified and purity water classes were defined. The river did not fulfil the requirements of the Water Framework Directive, because its state was defined as poor and moderate. On the base of physical and chemical parameters, in the majority of water studied the watercourses were classified to the first class of purity. Only in one segment waters were below the first class, or even out of class.