Ecological Thresholds in the Savanna Landscape Developing a Protocol for Monitoring the Change in Composition and Utilisation of Large Trees 英文参考文献.docVIP

EcologicalThresholdsintheSavannaLandscape: DevelopingaProtocolforMonitoringtheChangein CompositionandUtilisationofLargeTrees DaveJ.Druce1,GraemeShannon1*,BruceR.Page1,RinaGrant2,RobSlotow1 1AmarulaElephantResearchProgramme,BiologicalandConservationSciences,WestvilleCampus,UniversityofKwaZulu-Natal,Durban,SouthAfrica,2ScientificServices, KrugerNationalPark,Skukuza,SouthAfrica Abstract Background:Acquiringgreaterunderstandingofthefactorscausingchangesinvegetationstructure-particularlywiththe potentialtocauseregimeshifts-isimportantinadaptivelymanagedconservationareas.Largetrees($5minheight)play animportantecosystemfunction,andareassociatedwithastableecologicalstateintheAfricansavanna.Thereisconcern thatlargetreedensitiesaredeclininginanumberofprotectedareas,includingtheKrugerNationalPark,SouthAfrica.In thispapertheresultsofafieldstudydesignedtomonitorchangeinasavannasystemarepresentedanddiscussed. Methodology/Principal Findings: Developing the first phase of a monitoring protocol to measure the change in tree species composition, density and size distribution, whilst also identifying factors driving change. A central issue is the discrete spatial distribution of large trees in the landscape, making point sampling approaches relatively ineffective. Accordingly, fourteen 10m wide transects were aligned perpendicular to large rivers (3.0–6.6km in length) and eight transects were located at fixed-point photographic locations (1.0–1.6km in length). Using accumulation curves, we establishedthatthemajorityoftreespeciesweresampledwithin3km.Furthermore,thekeyecologicaldrivers(e.g.fire, herbivory,droughtanddisease)whichinfluencelargetreeuseandimpactwerealsorecordedwithin3km. Conclusions/Significance: The technique presented provides an effective method for monitoring changes in large tree abundance,sizedistributionandusebythemainecologicaldriversacrossthesavannalandscape.However,themonitoring of rare tree species would require individual marking approaches due to their low de