Silvia C. Aranda

A spatial scale assessment of habitat effects on arthropod communities of an oceanic island

Most habitats in the Azores have undergone substantial land-use changes and anthropogenic disturbance during the last six centuries. In this study we assessed how the richness, abundance and composition of arthropod communities change with: (1) habitat type and (2) the surrounding land-use at different spatial scales. The research was conducted in Terceira Island, Azores. In eighty-one sites of four different habitat types (natural and exotic forests, semi-natural and intensively managed pastures), epigaeic arthropods were captured with pitfall traps and classified as endemic, native or introduced. The land-use surrounding each site was characterized within a radius ranging from 100 to 5000 m. Non-parametric tests were used to identify differences in species richness, abundance and composition between habitat types at different spatial scales. Endemic and native species were more abundant in natural forests, while introduced species were more abundant in intensively managed pastures. Natural forests and intensively managed pastures influenced arthropod species richness and composition at all spatial scales. Exotic forests and semi-natural pastures, however, influenced the composition of arthropod communities at larger scales, promoting the connectivity of endemic and native species populations. Local species richness, abundance and composition of arthropod communities are mostly determined by the presence of nearby natural forests and/or intensively managed pastures. However, semi-natural pastures and exotic forests seem to play an important role as corridors between natural forests for both endemic and native species. Furthermore, exotic forests may serve as a refuge for some native species.

New national and regional bryophyte records, 26

26 L T Ellis, H Bednarek-Ochyra, R Ochyra, Silvia Calvo Aranda, Maria T Colotti, Maria M Schiavone, Michail V Dulin, P Erzberger, Tulay Ezer, Recep Kara, Rosalina Gabriel, Lars Hedenas, David T Holyoak, P Odor, B Papp, M Sabovljevic, R D Seppelt, V R Smith, Andre Sotiaux, E Szurdoki, Alain Vanderpoorten, J van Rooy, J Żarnowiec Department of Botany, The Natural History Museum, UK, Laboratory of Bryology, Institute of Botany, Polish Academy of Sciences, Krakow, Poland, 3 Departamento de Biodiversidad y Biologia Evolutiva, Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, Madrid, Spain, Facultad de Ciencias Naturales e IML, San Miguel de Tucuman, Argentina, Institute of Biology Komi Science Centre UB RAS, Syktyvkar, Komi Republic, Russia, Belziger Str. 37, D-10823 Berlin, Germany, Faculty of Science and Arts, Department of Biology, Nigde University, Turkey, Departamento de Ciencias Agrarias, Universidade dos Acores, Angra do Heroismo, Portugal, Department of Cryptogamic Botany, Swedish Museum of Natural History, Stockholm, Sweden, Quinta da Cachopa, Barcoila, Cabecudo, Portugal, Department of Plant Taxonomy and Ecology, Lorand Eotvos University, Budapest, Hungary, Botanical Department, Hungarian Natural History Museum, Budapest, Hungary, Institute of Botany and Botanical Garden, Faculty of Biology, University of Belgrade, Serbia, Australian Antarctic Division, Channel Highway, Kingston, Tasmania, Australia, Department of Botany, University of Stellenbosch, Matieland, South Africa, National Botanic Garden of Belgium, Domein van Bouchout, Meise, Belgium, Hungarian Natural History Museum, Budapest, Hungary, University of Liege, Institute of Botany, Belgium, National Herbarium, South African National Biodiversity Institute, Pretoria, South Africa, Department of Ecology and Nature Conservation, Institute of Environmental Protection and Engineering, University of Bielsko-Biala, Poland

New national and regional bryophyte records, 37

We report the first record of Drepanocladus longifolius for Slovakia evidenced by herbarium specimen.

Geographical, temporal and environmental determinants of bryophyte species richness in the Macaronesian islands.

Species richness on oceanic islands has been related to a series of ecological factors including island size and isolation (i.e. the Equilibrium Model of Island Biogeography, EMIB), habitat diversity, climate (i.e., temperature and precipitation) and more recently island ontogeny (i.e. the General Dynamic Model of oceanic island biogeography, GDM). Here we evaluate the relationship of these factors with the diversity of bryophytes in the Macaronesian region (Azores, Madeira, Canary Islands and Cape Verde). The predictive power of EMIB, habitat diversity, climate and the GDM on total bryophyte richness, as well as moss and liverwort richness (the two dominant bryophyte groups), was evaluated through ordinary least squares regressions. After choosing the best subset of variables using inference statistics, we used partial regression analyses to identify the independent and shared effects of each model. The variables included within each model were similar for mosses and liverworts, with orographic mist layer being one of the most important predictors of richness. Models combining climate with either the GDM or habitat diversity explained most of richness variation (up to 91%). There was a high portion of shared variance between all pairwise combinations of factors in mosses, while in liverworts around half of the variability in species richness was accounted for exclusively by climate. Our results suggest that the effects of climate and habitat are strong and prevalent in this region, while geographical factors have limited influence on Macaronesian bryophyte diversity. Although climate is of great importance for liverwort richness, in mosses its effect is similar to or, at least, indiscernible from the effect of habitat diversity and, strikingly, the effect of island ontogeny. These results indicate that for highly vagile taxa on oceanic islands, the dispersal process may be less important for successful colonization than the availability of suitable ecological conditions during the establishment phase.

Phylogeny, classification and species delimitation in the liverwort genus Odontoschisma (Cephaloziaceae)

A species-level phylogeny of Odontoschisma (Jungermanniidae: Cephaloziaceae) was produced to revisit the infrageneric classification and delimit the species within the genus. New methods of species delimitation have been used to explicitly contrast taxonomic hypotheses and test the relevance of the morphological traits traditionally used in this group. The results confirm previous evidence suggesting that the circumscription of Odontoschisma needs to be enlarged to include Iwatsukia and Cladopodiella, and further indicate that a third genus, Anomoclada, is nested within it. Twentythree molecular entities were recognized based the results of generalized mixed Yule-coalescent (GMYC) analyses. These entities partly conflicted with traditionally defined species that were shown to belong to different, not necessarily closely related entities, adding to the growing body of evidence calling for an extensive revision of species delimitations in taxa with reduced morphologies like leafy liverworts, using an integrative taxonomic approach. A fully revised classification of Odontoschisma into five sections, twenty species, and three subspecies is presented. While the species reported from Europe, Asia and North America were of polyphyletic origins, all Neotropical species were resolved as monophyletic, which could result from a combination of fast speciation rates and reduced dispersal in the Neotropics, and potential extinction in other areas, especially sub-Saharan Africa.

Assessing the completeness of bryophytes inventories: an oceanic island as a case study (Terceira, Azorean archipelago)

How useful, complete or unbiased are comprehensive databases in order to provide reliable estimations of diversity? Using compiled data from bryophytes in Terceira Island (Azores), we specifically aim (1) to describe the register of species over time, (2) to assess the inventory completeness, i.e., the ratio between the observed and the maximum expected species, and (3) to locate the most promising areas for further surveys. First, each new recorded species was plotted against its collecting year, using the number of database-records as a surrogate of survey effort, to get the accumulation curves. These curves were then extrapolated to obtain the theoretical number of existing species according to Clench and exponential models. Spatial and habitat characteristics of the recorded taxa were also explored. Our results show an increasing trend in the rate of recorded species (c. five species per year), as well as a maximum of around a third of the theoretically “real” number of expected species that could yet remain unknown. Nevertheless, predictions of species richness were highly variable depending on the fitting curve used. Survey effort was similar between liverworts and mosses, as were inventory completeness values, but the rate of new recorded species was higher for mosses. Although bryologists visited preferably native habitats, we show that new species citations may also be found in modified habitats (e.g., exotic forests and semi-natural grasslands). We conclude that the analysis of extensive databases is a useful tool in revealing the recording and taxonomic gaps, further showing that bryophyte inventories could still be incomplete in Terceira Island. A strategy on how to improve species’ collections in remote areas is suggested, hoping to contribute to all-inclusive biodiversity studies in the Azores and elsewhere.

Climate threat on the Macaronesian endemic bryophyte flora

Oceanic islands are of fundamental importance for the conservation of biodiversity because they exhibit high endemism rates coupled with fast extinction rates. Nowhere in Europe is this pattern more conspicuous than in the Macaronesian biogeographic region. A large network of protected areas within the region has been developed, but the question of whether these areas will still be climatically suitable for the globally threatened endemic element in the coming decades remains open. Here, we make predictions on the fate of the Macaronesian endemic bryophyte flora in the context of ongoing climate change. The potential distribution of 35 Macaronesian endemic bryophyte species was assessed under present and future climate conditions using an ensemble modelling approach. Projections of the models under different climate change scenarios predicted an average decrease of suitable areas of 62–87% per species and a significant elevational increase by 2070, so that even the commonest species were predicted to fit either the Vulnerable or Endangered IUCN categories. Complete extinctions were foreseen for six of the studied Macaronesian endemic species. Given the uncertainty regarding the capacity of endemic species to track areas of suitable climate within and outside the islands, active management associated to an effective monitoring program is suggested.

Designing a survey protocol to overcome the Wallacean shortfall: a working guide using bryophyte distribution data on Terceira Island (Azores)

Abstract The increasing availability of open access data on species occurrences is leading researchers to generate more hypotheses about patterns of species distributions. However, when all of this information is mapped onto a particular geographical scale, gaps usually appear due to lack of knowledge and sampling spatial bias (the so-called Wallacean shortfall). To overcome these problems as efficiently as possible, field surveys should be designed after distinguishing well-surveyed places from those with incomplete inventories in order to carry out the extra survey effort in those areas not represented environmentally and spatially by the well-surveyed places. This procedure requires (1) gathering, cleaning and standardizing data; (2) selecting environmental variables that are important for the group considered according to field experience and the literature; and (3) making statistical decisions about the number and location of areas that should be surveyed according to the available resources. Here, we summarize most concepts and procedures devoted to the evaluation of biodiversity data, offering some general recommendations on how to use them for optimizing new survey designs. As a practical guide for potential users, we provide an example describing its application to a comprehensive database on bryophyte distribution on Terceira Island (Azores, Portugal). More than 8,000 bryophyte records were gathered, but (i) less than half of the island area has been surveyed at least once and (ii) less than 1% of these have reliable inventories (placed on the few remnants of laurel forests that have been traditionally better surveyed). Nevertheless, surveying just 15 additional localities evenly distributed across the major environmental regions and habitats on Terceira Island seems to represent the existing environmental diversity. We believe that the survey protocol presented here for bryophytes of Terceira Island could be flexibly applied to other taxa or areas.

New national and regional bryophyte records, 45

D. S. G. Henriques, O. V. Ilina, J. E. Gil-Novoa, M. E. Morales-Puentes, S. R. Gradstein, R. Gupta, V. Nath, A. K. Asthana, A. Koczur, M. Lebouvier, A. Mesterházy, F. Mogro, A. Mežaka, Cs. Németh, J. D. Orgaz, Y. Sakamoto, J. Paiva, F. Sales, N. Pande, M. S. Sabovljević, J. Pantivić, A. D. Sabovljević, A. Pérez-Haase, D. Pinheiro da Costa, V. Plášek, J. Sawicki, M. Szczecińska, J. Chmielewski , A. Potemkin , A. Scha 31 32 ̈fer-Verwimp , W. B. Schofield 33 , C. Sérgio, M. Sim-Sim, S. Sjögren, D. Spitale, A. Stebel, S. Ştefănuţ , G. M. Sua 40 ́rez , J 41 . R. Flores , L. Thouvenot , J. Va 41 42 ́ňa , 43

Global Island Monitoring Scheme (GIMS): a proposal for the long-term coordinated survey and monitoring of native island forest biota

Islands harbour evolutionary and ecologically unique biota, which are currently disproportionately threatened by a multitude of anthropogenic factors, including habitat loss, invasive species and climate change. Native forests on oceanic islands are important refugia for endemic species, many of which are rare and highly threatened. Long-term monitoring schemes for those biota and ecosystems are urgently needed: (i) to provide quantitative baselines for detecting changes within island ecosystems, (ii) to evaluate the effectiveness of conservation and management actions, and (iii) to identify general ecological patterns and processes using multiple island systems as repeated ‘natural experiments’. In this contribution, we call for a Global Island Monitoring Scheme (GIMS) for monitoring the remaining native island forests, using bryophytes, vascular plants, selected groups of arthropods and vertebrates as model taxa. As a basis for the GIMS, we also present new, optimized monitoring protocols for bryophytes and arthropods that were developed based on former standardized inventory protocols. Effective inventorying and monitoring of native island forests will require: (i) permanent plots covering diverse ecological gradients (e.g. elevation, age of terrain, anthropogenic disturbance); (ii) a multiple-taxa approach that is based on standardized and replicable protocols; (iii) a common set of indicator taxa and community properties that are indicative of native island forests’ welfare, building on, and harmonized with existing sampling and monitoring efforts; (iv) capacity building and training of local researchers, collaboration and continuous dialogue with local stakeholders; and (v) long-term commitment by funding agencies to maintain a global network of native island forest monitoring plots.