Effect of grassland mosaic structure and dynamism on the reproductive habitat suitability for Alectoris graeca in central Apennines

作     者：Andrea BRUSAFERRO Valentina IESARI Federico Maria TARDELLA Paola SCOCCO Andrea CATORCI 

作者机构：School of Biosciences and Veterinary Medicine University of Camerino 

出 版 物：《Journal of Mountain Science》 (山地科学学报（英文）)

年 卷 期：2019年第16卷第12期

页      面：2783-2792页

核心收录：

学科分类：0710[理学-生物学] 071001[理学-植物学] 07[理学] 

基　　金：the Monti Sibillini National Park for having funded this research  within the project “Censimento della coturnice (Alectoris graeca orlandoi) nel Parco Nazionale dei Monti Sibillini” 

主　　题：Brachypodium genuense Grazing cessation Reproductive habitat suitability Rock partridge Singing male Vegetation recovery processes 

摘      要：Over the last several decades,the Mediterranean region has been subjected to mountain abandonment and farming cessation,leading to changes in vegetation and coenological features of grasslands,contextually to the strong decline of the rock partridge(Alectoris graeca).Our hypothesis was that the ongoing dynamic processes leading to the compositional changes of grasslands in central Apennines affect the habitat suitability for the singing male(territorial male defending its reproductive site).In 2015,we defined the presence/absence of spring territorial singing males in seven sites(1,250-2,400 m a.s.l.),by the census in 74 playback stations,distributed along 15 *** characterized the topography and the vegetation mosaic of such sites according to the collected topographic and vegetation cover data in 59 randomly selected plots(100 m×100 m)along the *** understand the relations among the environmental variables and the effect of the composition and dynamism of the vegetation mosaics on the presence/absence of the singing male,we used principal components analysis and generalized linear mixed-effect *** results emphasized the marked overlap between the general environmental conditions,which proved to define the habitat suitability for ***,and the characteristics of the site chosen by the singing male for starting the reproductive ***,we found that the site suitability for the singing male decreases when the vegetation recovery processes are ongoing,because of the spread of coarse tall grassesdominated communities and/or grassland types with dense *** grass-dominated communities and thick-turf grasslands exert their negative effect decreasing the habitat suitability for the singing male starting from low cover ***,it is conceivable that singing male’s suitable habitat will be dramatically restricted to the steepest south-facing slopes,where topographic and soil conditions do not allow the spread of grassl