Land-Use Change, Rural Practices and Animal Diversity

Topic Information

Dear Colleagues,

Traditional rural and land-use practices produce a typical mosaic structure at the landscape scale. Extensive agricultural landscapes are usually characterized by small man-made structures such as field boundaries, terraces, dry-stone walls, irrigation ponds and drinking troughs. These structures are recognized as important elements for the conservation of biodiversity, and they act as stepping stones and increase connectivity corridors among biological populations. In fact, these structures maintain the viability of animal metapopulations in many agricultural landscapes. However, in recent years, large land-use transformations have occurred, increasing the homogeneity of the rural landscape. Moreover, in many remote areas, traditional rural practices have been abandoned and these man-made structures are neglected and lost. In many areas, the abandonment of rural practices may have severe outcomes on biodiversity both at the local and regional scale, especially in the Mediterranean region where animal and plants are well adapted to human rural activities. The importance of these artificial structures is now acknowledged by ecologists, conservationists and even by policy makers, and in some cases, legislation on the conservation of biodiversity (i.e., in article 10 of the European Union Habitats Directive 92/43/EEC) has been adopted. Therefore, the objective of this Topic is to serve as a forum for advancing our scientific understanding of the effects of land-use changes in rural landscapes on animal diversity.

Dr. Sebastiano Salvidio
Dr. Anna Seniczak
Dr. Giacomo Rosa
Topic Editors

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Participating Journals

Journal Name	Impact Factor	CiteScore	Launched Year	First Decision (median)	APC
Animals animals	3.0	4.2	2011	18.1 Days	CHF 2400	Submit
Conservation conservation	-	-	2021	30.5 Days	CHF 1000	Submit
Diversity diversity	2.4	3.1	2009	17.8 Days	CHF 2600	Submit
Land land	3.9	3.7	2012	14.8 Days	CHF 2600	Submit
Sustainability sustainability	3.9	5.8	2009	18.8 Days	CHF 2400	Submit

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13 pages, 762 KiB  

Open AccessArticle

Rice Fields as Important Habitats for Three Anuran Species—Significance and Implications for Conservation

by Simeon Lukanov, Andrey Kolev, Blagovesta Dimitrova and Georgi Popgeorgiev

Animals 2024, 14(1), 106; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani14010106 - 27 Dec 2023

Viewed by 819

Abstract

Agriculture can have different effects on wildlife depending on land-use type and extensive/intensive practices. The aim of this study was to establish the significance of rice fields in Central Bulgaria as anuran habitats. We used Audiomoth acoustic loggers to record calling activity at [...] Read more.

Agriculture can have different effects on wildlife depending on land-use type and extensive/intensive practices. The aim of this study was to establish the significance of rice fields in Central Bulgaria as anuran habitats. We used Audiomoth acoustic loggers to record calling activity at three sites near the city of Plovdiv—one shallow pond and two rice fields—from June to September in 2022 and 2023. We registered the three most widespread species in the region—Bufotes viridis, Hyla orientalis and Pelophylax ridibundus—and created pattern-matching models for them using the free web interface Arbimon, which enabled us to perform presence/absence counts and abundance estimates. At the beginning and the end of the rice vegetation period, water samples were collected and analysed for 62 substances. Substance concentrations were compared between ponds and with LC50 data from the available literature. We registered 19 and 21 substances in 2022 and 2023, respectively, with concentrations within the accepted limits, and although some metals were near risk levels, this was not reflected in the presence counts or the abundance estimates. The results indicated that frog activity was not related to any of the registered substances, but that it was positively correlated with daily rainfall and was higher in the rice fields. Full article

(This article belongs to the Topic Land-Use Change, Rural Practices and Animal Diversity)

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