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Plant Spatial Pattern Predicts Hillslope Runoff and Erosion in a Semiarid Mediterranean Landscape

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Abstract

The importance of the spatial pattern of vegetation for hydrological behavior in semiarid environments is widely acknowledged. However, there is little empirical work testing the hypothetical covariation between vegetation spatial structure and hillslope water and sediment fluxes. We evaluated the relationships between vegetation structural attributes (spatial pattern, functional diversity), soil surface properties (crust, stone, plant, and ground cover, and particle size distribution) and hillslope hydrologic functioning in a semiarid Mediterranean landscape; in particular, we tested whether decreasing patch density or coarsening plant spatial pattern would increase runoff and sediment yield at the hillslope scale. Runoff and sediment yield were measured over a 45-month period on nine 8 × 2-m plots that varied in vegetation type and spatial pattern. We grouped vegetation into functional types and derived plant spatial pattern attributes from field plot maps processed through a GIS system. We found that there was an inverse relationship between patch density and runoff, and that both runoff and sediment yields increased as the spatial pattern of vegetation coarsened. Vegetation pattern attributes and plant functional diversity were better related to runoff and sediment yield than soil surface properties. However, a significant relationship was found between physical crust cover and plant spatial pattern. Our results present empirical evidence for the direct relationship between the hydrologic functioning of semiarid lands and both the spatial pattern and the functional diversity of perennial vegetation, and suggest that plant spatial pattern, physical crust cover, and functional diversity may be linked through feedback mechanisms.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We thank Eva Albeza, Adela Blasco and Alazne Martín for their help during fieldwork. This work was supported by an FPI fellowship from the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science awarded to A. G. Mayor and by the research project CGL2004-03627, funded by the same Ministry. We are particularly grateful to Craig D. Allen for useful discussions on the manuscript. Comments by Debra Peters, John Ludwig and an anonymous reviewer improved this paper.

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  1. Dpto. de Ecología, Universidad de Alicante, Apdo. 99, E-03080, Alicante, Spain

    Susana Bautista, Ángeles G. Mayor, Jamal Bourakhouadar & Juan Bellot

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  1. Susana Bautista
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  2. Ángeles G. Mayor
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  3. Jamal Bourakhouadar
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  4. Juan Bellot
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Correspondence to Susana Bautista.

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Bautista, S., Mayor, Á.G., Bourakhouadar, J. et al. Plant Spatial Pattern Predicts Hillslope Runoff and Erosion in a Semiarid Mediterranean Landscape. Ecosystems 10, 987–998 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-007-9074-3

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