Condition of linear landscape elements improves with contiguity to protected habitats: Empirical evidence useful for agroecosystem accounting and restoration

Abstract

In Mediterranean Europe, both intensification and abandonment of traditional cultural practices represent main drivers for the loss of natural and semi-natural elements in agricultural settings. Once common in rural landscapes, these habitats have to be conserved or restored to ensure resilience and resistance of agroecosystems against biodiversity loss and socio-ecological changes. In particular, linear landscape elements (LE) fall among the high-biodiversity landscape features that require to be increased in agricultural lands to facilitate species mobility and provide a wide range of ecosystem services. However, within the framework of environmental accounting procedures, there is still a need for a thorough methodology to assess conditions of LE and, subsequently, of the hosting agroecosystems. The present research is therefore aimed at (i) proposing a method for a thorough assessment of LE conditions, with a special focus on biodiversity support capacity, (ii) investigating the potential effect of extrinsic determinants on LE conditions, such as contiguity to protected habitats and governance framework, and (iii) identifying useful parameters to guide LE ecological restoration actions. Based on different structural, compositional and landscape indicators, the proposed assessment method was tested in eight administrative units of two Mediterranean Europe countries. In the study sites, favorable LE conditions were found to be strongly associated with contiguity to protected habitats, by showing marked structural continuity, dominance of trees, active dynamics, and good quality of the surrounding landscape mosaic. Potential applications of the results have been finally explored in both ecosystem accounting and ecological restoration processes.