Publication: Functional redundancy as a tool for bioassessment: A test using riparian vegetation
Authors
Bruno, Daniel ; Gutiérrez Cánovas, Cayetano ; Velasco, Josefa ; Sánchez Fernández, David
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Publisher
Elsevier
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DOI
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2016.05.186
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info:eu-repo/semantics/article
Description
©2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. This document is the Published version of a Published Work that appeared in final form in Science of the Total Environment. To access the final edited and published work see http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2016.05.186
Abstract
There is an urgent need to track how natural systems are responding to global change in order to better guide
management efforts. Traditionally, taxonomically based metrics have been used as indicators of ecosystem integrity
and conservation status. However, functional approaches offer promising advantages that can improve bioassessment
performance. In this study,we aimto test the applicability of functional redundancy (FR), a functional
feature related to the stability, resistance and resilience of ecosystems, as a tool for bioassessment, looking at
woody riparian communities in particular. We used linear mixed-effect models to investigate the response of
FR and other traditional biomonitoring indices to natural (drought duration) and anthropogenic stress gradients
(flow regulation and agriculture) in a Mediterranean basin. Such indices include species richness, a taxonomic
index, and the Riparian Quality Index, which is an index of ecological status. Then, we explored the ability of
FR and the other indices to discriminate between different intensities of human alteration. FR showed higher explanatory
capacity in response to multiple stressors, although we found significant negative relationships between
all the biological indices (taxonomic, functional and ecological quality) and stress gradients. In addition,
FRwas the most accurate index to discriminate among different categories of human alteration in both perennial
and intermittent river reaches, which allowed us to set threshold values to identify undisturbed (reference condition),
moderately disturbed and highly disturbed reaches in the two types of river. Using these thresholds and the best-fitting model, we generated a map of human impact on the functional redundancy of riparian communities
for all the stretches of the river network. Our results demonstrate that FR presents clear advantages over
traditional methods, which suggests that it should be part of the biomonitoring toolbox used for environmental
management so as to obtain better predictions of ecosystem response to environmental changes.
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Citation
Science of the Total Environment 566–567 (2016) 1268–1276
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