Biodiversity potential of Nothofagus forests in Tierra del Fuego (Argentina): tools for regional conservation planning

MARTÍNEZ PASTUR, G; PERI, P; SOLER, R; SCHINDLER, S; LENCINAS, MV

BIODIVERSITY AND CONSERVATION

SPRINGER

Lugar: Berlin; Año: 2016 vol. 25 p. 1843 - 1862

0960-3115

Biodiversitygreatly influences over ecosystem services provision. There is a need todevelop new spatially explicit methods to map and quantify the biodiversitypotential and the spatial associations with landscape factors at regional scale.The objective was to determine the potential biodiversity using habitatsuitability maps of the understory plant species with highest cover and occurrencefrequency in different forests types of Tierra del Fuego Island (Argentina). We useda database of vascular plants from  535 surveysfrom which we identified 35 indicative species. We explored more than 50potential explanatory variables to develop habitat suitability maps of theindicative species, which were combined to develop a map of the potentialbiodiversity. Correlation among environmental, topographic and landscape variableswere discussed, as well as the marginality and the specificity of the indicativespecies. Habitat suitability models were a useful tool to predict differentniche per species. Habitat suitability models performed with indicative plantspecies were very effective to develop a decision support system forconservation and management strategies at different landscape levels. The mapof potential biodiversity allowed to identify forests with differentconservation potential across the landscape, and can be used to identifyland-use conflicts, e.g. timber production and livestock. Also, this may assistplans for conservation  strategy  in Natural Reserves.