Distribution of amphibians and reptiles in agricultural landscape across Europe

Abstract

Evaluating herpetofauna presence and the species-specific and species richness patterns in response to agricultural landscape features is essential for understanding the herpetofauna decline in agricultural landscapes. This work aimed to explore how different categories, extent and heterogeneity of crops affect herpetofauna distribution and diversity patterns at different spatial resolutions: UTM 50 km2, UTM 10 km2 and GPS coordinates. Using presence-only data from online repositories we documented the occurrence of European amphibians and reptiles in crops and quantified crop extent and heterogeneity in 50 and 10 km2 grid cells, and in the recorded presence locations. We used logistic regressions to test the effect of crop extent on species occurrence and calculated the proportion of species showing a significant response to each crop category. We analysed species richness patterns with generalized additive models against crop extent, crop heterogeneity and crop categories extracted at GPS locations, as fixed effects. We recorded 71 amphibian and 143 reptile species at 50 and 10 km2 spatial resolutions, and 58 amphibian and 108 reptile species at GPS resolution. Our results showed that amphibian and reptile species presence and richness are influenced by crop category, extent and heterogeneity and that spatial patterns were scale dependent. Species richness of both amphibians and reptiles was generally negatively correlated with crop extent but was enhanced by crop heterogeneity. Our results provide useful information for future risk assessment of herpetofauna and conservation efforts to restore or sustain herpetofauna biodiversity in agricultural systems across Europe. We stress that the scale of landscape management may lead to contrasting outcomes.