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An expert system for the conservation of Atlantic estuarine wet meadows: application to a Natura 2000 site in France

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Abstract

Vegetation is a good indicator that can help better manage and conserve nature. It is also essential for characterizing habitats that represent an essential component of European nature conservation policy, especially within the Natura 2000 network. However, identifying plant communities is a complex operation partly because of the lack of available tools to identify them accurately. This obstacle is particularly noticeable when we talk about diverse plant communities like meadows. This study aims to develop an expert system to apply formalized classifications of Atlantic estuarine wet meadow community types in the Natura 2000 site ‘Estuaire de la Loire’. The tool we created automatically assigns vegetation plots to the units of the French vegetation typology. It allows us to ensure the classification of the European habitat types (EUNIS and the Annex I of the EU Habitats Directive) with 91% accuracy. This expert system was applied to a dataset of 1898 vegetation plots from the study area. It allowed us to link 718 vegetation plots to 4 habitats of wet meadows including the habitat of community interest 1410 ‘Mediterranean salt meadows (Juncetalia maritimi)’. Using this approach, we have also defined the characteristic species of these habitats at a local scale. This tool enables the fast, objective and replicable identifications of wet meadows which are necessary to map or monitor the habitat type (sensu Habitat Directive). The method applied in this study can be easily adapted in other sites and for other habitat types.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Kristell Le Bot (GIP Loire-Estuaire), Bérengère Autret (Grand Port Maritime Nantes Saint-Nazaire) and Aline Corbeaux (Nantes Métropole) for providing vegetation-plot data for this study. We would particularly like to thank Hermann Guitton of the National Botanical Conservatory of Brest for his assistance in field investigations, the collection of off-site data and useful discussions. We wish to thank Stéphanie Trécant et Frédéric Moré (Conseil Départemental de Loire-Atlantique) for assistance to financial set-up of this project. We are grateful to the three anonymous reviewers for providing constructive comment on the manuscript, improving the overall quality of the paper.

Funding

This research was carried out as part of a PhD CIFRE scholarship co-financed by ANRT (national research-technology association), the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the Ministry of Ecology within the framework of the financial agreement for the management of the Natura 2000 site ‘Estuaire de la Loire’.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. UMR CNRS 6554 LETG Littoral, Environnement, Télédétection, Géomatique – Université de Nantes, Chemin de la Censive du Tertre, B.P. 81227, 44312, Nantes, France

    Mathieu Le Dez & Marc Robin

  2. EA 7462 Géoarchitecture, Université de Bretagne Occidentale, 6 Avenue Victor le Gorgeu, 29200, Brest, France

    Pauline Delbosc

  3. UMR CNRS 6553 Ecobio, OSUR Campus Beaulieu, Université de Rennes 1, 35000, Rennes, France

    Jan-Bernard Bouzillé

  4. Conseil Départemental de Loire-Atlantique – Unité Milieux Naturels Délégation Nantes, 26 Boulevard Victor Hugo, 44200, Nantes, France

    Mathieu Le Dez

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  1. Mathieu Le Dez
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  3. Jan-Bernard Bouzillé
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Contributions

MLD, PD, JBB and MR conceived the study. Formal analysis and investigation: MLD and PD. MLD prepared the manuscript; PD, JBB and MR reviewed and edited the manuscript and approved the final version.

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Correspondence to Mathieu Le Dez.

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Le Dez, M., Delbosc, P., Bouzillé, JB. et al. An expert system for the conservation of Atlantic estuarine wet meadows: application to a Natura 2000 site in France. Biodivers Conserv 30, 4337–4357 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-021-02310-8

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