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Descriptive analysis of the ‘relictual’ Mediterranean landscape in the Guadalquivir River valley (southern Spain): a baseline for scientific research and the development of conservation action plans

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Abstract

Landscape fragmentation is ancient and severe in the countryside of the Guadalquivir river valley (Western Andalusia, Southern Spain). BIANDOCC is a project that aims to inventory all the forest patches embedded in this anthropogenic area to record quantitative, qualitative, and descriptive information about management, conservation status, vegetation physiognomy and floristic richness. We have characterized a ‘relictual’ landscape (≈1% of habitat retention) where nearly 70% of the patches (N = 535) are owned by private landowners who manage them to harvest pine nuts, cork, and firewood, for coal making, cattle raising, and to a lesser extent, beekeeping and agriculture. The publicly owned patches are intensively used for recreation. As a consequence, the vegetation physiognomy and conservation status in most forest stands is impoverished, with low shrub diversity and coverage and none or very low natural tree regeneration. Furthermore, patch size, connectedness and patch fractal dimension (i.e. microhabitat diversity) are all very low. However, the botanic richness is worth mentioning: 1,032 plant taxa have been identified, of which 70 are catalogued in an official red list, 39 are relevant chorological novelties, and one was newly described for science. Therefore, and interestingly, the remnant forest patches in the studied area can be regarded as relevant biodiversity reservoirs. The project reported here constitutes an important baseline for developing true conservation action plans and provides an opportunity to address the potential ecological and biological effects of fragmentation to plant genes, species, populations and communities, at the regional scale of the study, which are enhanced by the emergent landscape genetics and landscape ecology analytical tools.

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Acknowledgements

BIANDOCC was launched and supported by the Consejería de Medio Ambiente, Junta de Andalucía (Andalusian Regional Government), and I am especially indebted to F. Fernández Ruíz-Henestrosa and M. Rodríguez de los Santos for continuous collaboration and encouragement. The following people assisted in handling the database, the digital cartography, and the collection of data from the field: C. Pérez Porras, G. Ceballos, B. Garrido, F.J. Aparicio, R.G. Albaladejo, M. Porras, J.M. Luna, F. Garcia Martín, and L.F. Carrillo. The writing of this manuscript was supported by grants of the Fundación Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (FBBVA), the Spanish Ministerio de Ecucación y Ciencia (CGL2004-00022BOS) and the Consejería de Innovación, Ciencia y Empresa (Junta de Andalucía) (Proyecto de Excelencia P06-RNM-01499). The helpful comments by R.G. Albaladejo, M.A. Rodríguez, A. Sousa, G. Ceballos an anonymous reviewer significantly improved the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Biología Vegetal y Ecología, Universidad de Sevilla, Prof. García González No. 2, 41 012, Seville, Spain

    Abelardo Aparicio

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Correspondence to Abelardo Aparicio.

Appendix

Appendix

Plant taxa collected from the remnant forest patches of Western Andalusia included in the Red List of the Vascular Flora of Andalusia (Cabezudo et al. 2005), and the number of patches in which they were collected

  

No. of patches

Critically endangered (CR)

Limonium silvestrei Aparicio

1

Fumana juniperina (Dunal) Pau

2

Ononis azcaratei Devesa

1

Adenocarpus gibbsianus Castroviejo and Talavera

1

Genista ancistrocarpa Spach

2

Thymelaea lythroides Barratte and Murb.

1

Thymus albicans Hoffm. and Link

9

Allium pruinatum Link ex Sprengel

9

Mean ± SD

 

3.6 ± 4.0

Endangered (EN)

Juniperus oxycedrus subsp. macrocarpa (Sibth. and Sm.) Ball

1

Dianthus broteri Boiss. and Reuter

8

Iberis ciliata subsp. welwitschii (Boiss.) Moreno

4

Pistorinia breviflora Boiss.

13

Lathyrus nudicaulis (Willk.) Amo

1

Ononis leucotricha Cosson

5

Plantago algarbiensis Samp.

4

Galium concatenatum Cosson

3

Klasea monardii (Dufour) J. Holub

2

Centaurea aspera subsp. scorpiurifolia (Dufour) Nyman

7

Anthemis bourgaei Boiss. and Reuter

1

Mean ± SD

 

4.4 ± 3.7

Vulnerable (VU)

Juniperus phoenicea subsp. turbinata (Guss.) Nyman

10

Armeria macrophylla Boiss. and Reuter

8

Armeria gaditana Boiss.

10

Erica lusitanica Rudolphi

1

Erica andevalensis Cabezudo and Rivera

1

Erica ciliaris L.

1

Mercurialis elliptica Lam.

23

Euphorbia baetica Boiss.

10

Eryngium corniculatum Lam.

2

Eryngium galioides Lam.

1

Triguera osbeckii (L.) Willk.

1

Echium gaditanum Boiss.

6

Linaria munbyana (Boiss.) Boiss. and Reuter

1

Centaurea exarata Cosson

7

Cynara algarbiensis Cosson ex Mariz

3

Heteranthemis viscidehirta Schott

3

Hymenostemma pseudoanthemis (G. Kuntze) Willk.

10

Gaudinia hispanica Stace and Tutin

8

Mean ± SD

 

5.7 ± 5.9

Nearly threatened (NT)

Asplenium billotii F. Schultz

4

Juniperus phoenicea L. subsp. Phoenicea

9

Quercus lusitanica Lam.

1

Silene mariana Pau

2

Loeflingia baetica Lag.

32

Armeria velutina Boiss. and Reuter

34

Celtis australis L.

1

Drosophyllum lusitanicum (L.) Link.

1

Ulex minor Roth

16

Oenanthe pimpinelloides L.

1

Sideritis perezlarae (Borja) Obón and Rivera

4

Antirrhinum graniticum subsp. Onubensis (F. Casas) Valdés

3

Verbascum barnadesii Vahl

1

Pancratium maritimum L.

3

Mean ± SD

 

8.0 ± 11.3

Deficient data (DD)

Isoetes velatum A. Braun subsp. Velatum

2

Silene scabriflora subsp. tuberculata (Ball) Talavera

3

Arenaria algarbiensis Welw. ex Willk.

12

Armeria hirta Willd.

13

Limonium ovalifolium (Poiret) O. Kuntze

1

Armeria hispalensis Pau

4

Armeria linkiana Nieto Feliner

1

Tuberariabrevipes Boiss. and Reuter

17

Tuberaria conmutata Gallego

37

Tuberaria echioides (Lam.) Willk.

18

Ononis cintrana Brot.

3

Thymelaea pubescens subsp. elliptica (Boiss.) Kit Tan

1

Anchusa calcarea Boiss.

3

Verbascum masguindali (Pau) Benedí and JM Montserrat

1

Centaurea cordubensis Font Quer

4

Centaurea alba subsp. macrocephala (Pau) Talavera

1

Triglochin laxiflora Guss.

1

Juncus emmanuelis A. Fernandes and García

3

Bromus macrantherus Enriques

1

Mean ± SD

 

6.6 ± 9.2

  1. Categories correspond with IUCN (2001)

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Aparicio, A. Descriptive analysis of the ‘relictual’ Mediterranean landscape in the Guadalquivir River valley (southern Spain): a baseline for scientific research and the development of conservation action plans. Biodivers Conserv 17, 2219–2232 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-007-9295-y

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