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Environmental determinants of woody and herbaceous riparian vegetation patterns in a semi-arid mediterranean basin

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Abstract

What environmental variables determine riparian vegetation patterns? Are there differences between woody and herbaceous species? To answer these questions, we first explored the composition and richness patterns of both riparian woody and herbaceous species in a semi-arid mediterranean basin. Then, we assessed the environmental factors (climate, geology, topography, hydrogeomorphology and land use) that best explain these patterns. We used the following methodological approaches: clustering analyses, distance-based linear models, generalised linear models and hierarchical partitioning procedures. Valley shape, drought duration, river habitat heterogeneity, water conductivity and agricultural land use were the most important variables explaining variation in species composition for both groups. Woody riparian richness was mainly influenced by flow conditions and valley shape, whereas herbaceous one was more dependent on substrate features. Thus, although some differences in the importance of individual variables were observed, we found a notable congruence in the composition and species richness of both groups and also in the main types of variables explaining these patterns (hydrogeomorphology and land use, especially agriculture). Our results show that both communities could be treated in a holistic way, since they respond similarly to the strong natural and anthropogenic environmental gradients present in mediterranean basins.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank to S. Rios for introducing us to knowledge about the riparian vegetation of the Segura River, M.T. Ferreira for their useful suggestions and all of the members of the ‘Ecología Acuática’ Research Group (University of Murcia), especially J. A. Carbonell and S.Guareschi as well as A. García-Ramos for their help and support in the fieldwork. D. B. and D. S. -F. were supported by a predoctoral (FPU) and postdoctoral grant (Juan de la Cierva program), respectively, both of them from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness. We also want to thank to the Euromediterranean Institute of Water for the fieldwork funding received from the project ‘Hydrological classification of the rivers and streams in the Segura basin and associated macroinvertebrate communities’; the Confederación Hidrográfica del Segura for providing the climatic data and the SIMPA model; and the Instituto Geográfico Nacional as well as the Instituto Geológico y Minero de España for the GIS data. Finally, we are also grateful to Melissa Crim and Javier Lloret for double-checking the English.

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  1. Departamento de Ecología e Hidrología, Campus de Excelencia Internacional Regional ‘Campus Mare Nostrum’, Universidad de Murcia, Murcia, Spain

    Daniel Bruno & Josefa Velasco

  2. Irstea, UR HYAX Hydrobiologie, HYNES (Irstea - EDF R&D), F-13182, Aix-en-Provence, France

    Oscar Belmar

  3. Institut de Biologia Evolutiva (IBE, CSIC-UPF), Barcelona, Spain

    David Sánchez-Fernández

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  1. Daniel Bruno
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Correspondence to Daniel Bruno.

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Bruno, D., Belmar, O., Sánchez-Fernández, D. et al. Environmental determinants of woody and herbaceous riparian vegetation patterns in a semi-arid mediterranean basin. Hydrobiologia 730, 45–57 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-014-1822-8

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