A fuzzy logic method to assess the relationship between landscape patterns and bird richenss of the Rolling Pampas

WEYLAND F; BAUDRY J; GHERSA CM

LANDSCAPE ECOLOGY

SPRINGER

Lugar: Berlin; Año: 2012 vol. 27 p. 869 - 885

0921-2973

The loss of biodiversity in productiveecosystems is a global concern of the last decades. TheRolling Pampas of Argentina is an intensively croppedregion that underwent important land use and landscapechange, with different impacts on biodiversity ofboth plants and animals. Land use type and habitatcomplexity are hypothesized to be the most importantfactors determining species richness in agro-ecosystems.But it is not easy to define these attributes in anunambiguous fashion, or determine their interactionsat different spatial scales. A fuzzy logic approachallows overcoming some of these problems by usinglinguistic variables and logic rules to relate them andformulate hypothesis. We constructed fuzzy logicmodels to study how bird species richness in theRolling Pampas is related to land use and habitatcomplexity, and how these variables interact at twospatial scales. Results showed that at the local scale,landscape complexity is the most important factordetermining species numbers; trees and bodies ofwater are the most influential complexities. The effectof local scale landscape attributes was modifieddepending on the context at broader scales, so thatagricultural sites were enriched when surrounded bymore favorable landscapes. There was a high dispersionin the predicted/observed value relationship,indicating that landscape factors interact in morecomplex ways than those captured by the models weused. We suggest that the fuzzy logic approach issuitable for working with biological systems, and wediscuss the advantages and disadvantages of its use.