Abstract
Human practices have had an impact on Mediterranean ecosystems for millennia, particularly through agricultural and pastoral activities. Since the mid-19th century, land-use abandonment has led to the expansion of shrubland and forest, especially in the mountainous areas of the northern Mediterranean basin. Knowledge of these factors is vital to understanding present forest patterns and predicting future forest dynamics in the Mediterranean mountains. We aimed to analyze and understand how land-use abandonment affected spatial modifications of landscapes in two study areas, 44,000 ha and 60,000 ha, located on the island of Corsica, France, representing a typical Mediterranean environment with chestnut forests. Our approach used land-cover archive documents from 1774, 1913, 1975, and 2000, and human population history, 1770 to present day, to describe landscape patterns following land-use abandonment. This research showed that dramatic changes in landscape at the two study areas were caused by the suspension of human influence and the interruption of traditional farming practices. Over the study period, both study sites showed significant reforestation of shrubland and cultivated areas marked by the presence of Quercus ilex forests (+3.40% yr-1 between 1975 and 2000) and by Pinus pinaster (+3.00% yr-1 between 1975 and 2000) at one study site that had experienced heavy rural exodus. At the same time, areas containing chestnut forests decreased by 50% between 1774 and 2000 (-0.09% yr-1 between 1774 and 1975 and -1.42% yr-1 between 1975 and 2000). Shrubland expansion remained limited at both study sites. Our study highlights the value of small-scale approaches for understanding the ecological consequences of land-use abandonment and present and future land-management decisions. Discussion concludes on the importance of working with long-term series for studies on resilience in social-ecological systems and on the consequences in terms of provision of ecosystem services.
Highlights
The abandonment of agricultural land has been a widely observed trend in the Mediterranean mountains since the early 19th century (Walther 1986, Garcia-Ruiz and LasantaMartinez 1990, Blondel and Aronson 1999, MacDonald et al 2000, Romero-Calcerrada and Perry 2004)
In Corsica, long-term vegetation dynamics are directly related to population history
The sweet chestnut is a tree species that has attracted particular attention from human populations (Conedera et al 2004). It is for these reasons that several regions of Corsica are covered by chestnut forests, notably the Castagniccia region (San Petrone massif), which at one point in time was the most populated region of Corsica (Perry 1967)
Summary
The abandonment of agricultural land has been a widely observed trend in the Mediterranean mountains since the early 19th century (Walther 1986, Garcia-Ruiz and LasantaMartinez 1990, Blondel and Aronson 1999, MacDonald et al 2000, Romero-Calcerrada and Perry 2004). The re-establishment of natural species on abandoned agricultural land is a common land-use change in the northern rim of the Mediterranean basin (Debussche et al 1999, Mouillot et al 2005, Chauchard et al 2007) and has led to the expansion of scrub and forest and a decrease in many seminatural open habitats in the Mediterranean mountains that had previously been maintained by traditional practices (Marty et al 2003) The intensity of this mountain area revegetation has had several negative consequences, including greater risk of fire and an increase in the speed at which wildfires spread (Vázquez and Moreno 1998), reduced water availability (Gallart and Llorens 2004), a reduction in landscape quality and agricultural value (Vos and Meekes 1999), a reduction in the extent of pastoral areas (Molinillo et al 1997), and a reduced spatial distribution of rare or endemic species (Farina 1997, Preiss et al 1997, Labaune and Magnin 2002, Kiss et al 2004)
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