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Article Dans Une Revue Ecological Indicators Année : 2017

Importance of ground refuges for the biodiversity in agricultural hedgerows

Résumé

tIn most agro-ecosystems, hedgerows provide important habitat for many species. Unfortunately, largescale destruction of hedges has stripped this structure from many landscapes. Replanting programs haveattempted to restore hedgerow habitats, but the methods employed often fail to replace the unique micro-habitats (complex matrix of stones, logs and roots found along the base of the hedge) that provided keyrefuges to an array of animal species. We examined the influence of ground refuges on animal diversityin an agricultural landscape. We used non-lethal rapid biodiversity assessments to sample invertebrateand vertebrate taxa in 69 hedges having different levels of herbaceous cover, tree cover, and refuge avail-ability. Co-inertia analyses compared hedge characteristics with the animal biodiversity sampled. Wealso used a functional index (accounting for body mass, trophic level, and metabolic mode of the speciessampled) to compare hedges. In addition, large sedentary predators (e.g. snakes) were used as indicatorsof shelter presence/quality and as bio-indicators of food web structures. Finally we used unbiased Chao-estimates to evaluate species richness. All results were convergent and show that complexity of the baseof the hedge (e.g., bank size and stone abundance) positively influenced biodiversity and predator abun-dance. Guidelines to restore hedgerows should integrate refuges that can be constructed by retaining thematerials that are extracted during the planting of the hedges.
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Dates et versions

hal-01397102 , version 1 (15-11-2016)

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Stéphane Lecq, Anne Loisel, Francois Brischoux, S. J. Mullin, Xavier Bonnet. Importance of ground refuges for the biodiversity in agricultural hedgerows. Ecological Indicators, 2017, 72, pp.615-626. ⟨10.1016/j.ecolind.2016.08.032⟩. ⟨hal-01397102⟩
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