Speaker
Description
Agricultural land abandonment is one of the main drivers of land-use change across Europe, with significant environmental consequences, particularly in regions such as northern Portugal. In the Peneda-Gerês National Park, this phenomenon has led to substantial landscape changes, primarily through secondary natural succession on areas formerly used for agriculture. As a result, the National Park now features a mosaic of young and old oak forest stands, each potentially offering distinct habitats for various species. This study focuses on evaluating the impact of these changes on beetle communities by comparing the effectiveness of classical species-area relationships (SAR) and countryside SAR models in predicting habitat preferences of beetles across different forest patches.
To achieve this, we employed window traps to systematically sample beetle populations across various forest stands. The collected specimens were identified using a metabarcoding approach, which allows for rapid and accurate species identification, thus enabling a comprehensive assessment of beetle biodiversity within the park. Our analysis aimed to determine whether the countryside SAR, which accounts for human-modified landscapes, provides a better model for predicting beetle species richness and habitat preference compared to the classical SAR model.
The findings show that beetle communities display clear preferences for specific forest ages, with the countryside SAR model showing better performance in indicating these preferences. These results contribute to a broader understanding of the National Park's ecosystem resilience, highlighting the importance of habitat patch characteristics such as forest age diversity and size in shaping biodiversity. This research underscores the need to integrate these factors into conservation and management strategies, particularly in regions undergoing significant land-use changes, to ensure the protection and sustainability of biodiversity.
| Status Group | Doctoral Researcher |
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