Drove roads: keystone structures that promote ant diversity in Mediterranean forest landscapes
Summary (1 min read)
1. Introduction 38 39
- Drove roads are at least 51 several centuries old, and may have originally been based on the migratory 52 routes of wild ungulates (Manzano and Casas, 2010) .
- Because of their 53 enormous area, long-term persistence, impact on the landscape structure and 54 capacity to host herbivore migrations, drove roads can have played a major 55 ecological role in the Mediterranean Basin.
- Their influence on 59 populations and communities may thus disappear before they are identified and 60.
studied. 61
- The few published ecological studies of drove roads have focused on their 63 effects on plant communities.
- More recently, the effects of drove roads on landscape patterns, 68 species composition and functional diversity of plant communities have been 69 measured (Azcárate et al, 2012) , showing that drove roads are a source of 70 spatial heterogeneity and a reservoir for many plant species in non-or 71 moderately-grazed habitats.
- Examples of keystone structures at different spatial 84 scales are tree cavities in forests (for insects, birds and mammals), trees in 85 African savannas (for arboreal rodents, ungulates, raptors and other species 86 groups) and temporary wetlands in agricultural fields (for carabid beetles) (Tews 5 et al., 2004; Remm and Lohmus, 2011) .
- Drove roads might then function 90 as keystone structures by favouring rich groups of terrestrial species with 91 relevant roles on ecosystem functioning, such as ants.
2.3. Distributional status of the ant species 159 160
- To take into account that these maps could be biased by several factors 164 (geographic distribution of myrmecologists, detectability of the different 165 species), and could underestimate the distribution range of many species, the authors 166 have considered that those species present in more than 25% of the Iberian 167 1ºx1º cells are widespread species.
- The rest of species were considered 168 uncommon.
2.4. Functional traits and functional diversity 171 172
- The aspect of the curves does not suggest increases in richness at the location 354 scale on the sole basis of the inclusion of a drove road.
- The composition of the 355 drove road communities also showed no substantial differences from the 356 cropland and rangeland matrices.
- It is important to note that although the study 357 locations are still managed extensively, they are increasingly being replaced by 358 more common intensive schemes, and also that ants are sensitive to 359 agricultural and grazing intensification (Wilson et al., 1999; Andersen et al., 360 2002; Philpott and Armbrecht, 2006) .
- Thus, drove roads within these intensively 361 managed open landscapes may indeed have higher richness values.
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Cites background from "Drove roads: keystone structures th..."
...The selection of these traits was based on important characteristics recognised in ant ecology (Azcárate et al. 2013)....
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References
157 citations
"Drove roads: keystone structures th..." refers background in this paper
...Drove roads have traditionally been regarded as a good example of ecological corridors for plant species (review in Bunce et al., 2006), although no experimental evidence supported this view until Manzano and Malo (2006) detected epizoochorous seed dispersal over distances of up to 400 km....
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150 citations
"Drove roads: keystone structures th..." refers background or result in this paper
...More recently, the role of ants in ecosystem functioning has been studied by measuring their functional diversity (Bihn et al., 2010; Silva and Brandao, 2010) although this approach has still been little addressed, in contrast to other taxa....
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...Unfortunately, there is still little consensus about which and how many traits should be considered for this purpose (see, for example, differences between Bihn et al., 2010; Silva and Brandao, 2010)....
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117 citations
"Drove roads: keystone structures th..." refers background in this paper
...Drove roads, also known as stock routes, are one of the most characteristic components of traditional landscapes in Mediterranean countries (Ruiz and Ruiz, 1986; Mangas Navas, 1992; Merino García and Alier Gándaras, 2004)....
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...The current crisis in extensive grazing has led to the abandonment of transhumance and grazing uses of drove roads (Ruiz and Ruiz, 1986; Ruiz, 2001), causing a loss of their differentiation from the surrounding ecological matrix....
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114 citations
"Drove roads: keystone structures th..." refers background in this paper
...Open Mediterranean grasslands are dominated by annual species producing large seed banks (Ortega et al., 1997), and not surprisingly both strict (e....
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...Open Mediterranean grasslands are dominated by annual species producing large seed banks (Ortega et al., 1997), and not surprisingly both strict (e.g. Messor capitatus) and facultative (e.g. Aphaenogaster iberica) granivores (Azcarate and Peco, 2012) were found in drove roads but not in forests....
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109 citations
"Drove roads: keystone structures th..." refers background in this paper
...Literature shows that ants respond strongly to land management (Bestelmeyer and Wiens, 1996; Chen et al., 2011), and are sensitive to different levels of grazing (Read and Andersen, 2000; Boulton et al., 2005; Azcarate and Peco, 2012)....
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