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CORINE land cover and floristic variation in a Mediterranean wetland

Environmental Monitoring and Assessment volume 182, pages 141–154 (2011)Cite this article

Abstract

The aims of the present study were to: (1) investigate whether CORINE land cover classes reflect significant differences in floristic composition, using a very detailed CORINE land cover map (scale 1:5000); (2) decompose the relationships between floristic assemblages and three groups of explanatory variables (CORINE land cover classes, environmental characteristics and spatial structure) into unique and interactive components. Stratified sampling was used to select a set of 100-m2 plots in each land cover class identified in the semi-natural wetland surrounding a lake in central Italy. The following six classes were considered: stable meadows, deciduous oak dominated woods, hygrophilous broadleaf dominated woods, heaths and shrublands, inland swamps, canals or watercourses. The relationship between land cover classes and floristic composition was tested using several statistical techniques in order to determine whether the results remained consistent with different procedures. The variation partitioning approach was applied to identify the relative importance of three groups of explanatory variables in relation to floristic variation. The most important predictor was land cover, which explained 20.7% of the variation in plant distribution, although the hypothesis that each land cover class could be associated with a particular floristic pattern was not verified. Multi Response Permutation Analysis did not indicate a strong floristic separability between land cover classes and only 9.5% of species showed a significant indicator value for a specific land cover class. We suggest that land cover classes linked with hygrophilous and herbaceous communities in a wetland may have floristic patterns that vary with fine scale and are not compatible with a land cover map.

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  1. Dipartimento di Scienze Ambientali, Università degli Studi dell’Aquila, Via Vetoio, 67100, L’Aquila, Italy

    Tommaso Giallonardo

  2. Dipartimento di Scienze Ambientali “G. Sarfatti”, Università degli Studi di Siena, Via P.A. Mattioli 4, 53100, Siena, Italy

    Marco Landi, Flavio Frignani, Francesco Geri & Claudia Angiolini

  3. Dipartimento di Biologia Evoluzionistica, Biologia Vegetale, Università degli Studi di Firenze, Via G. La Pira 4, 50121, Firenze, Italy

    Lorenzo Lastrucci

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  1. Tommaso Giallonardo
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  2. Marco Landi
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  3. Flavio Frignani
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  4. Francesco Geri
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  5. Lorenzo Lastrucci
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Correspondence to Tommaso Giallonardo.

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Giallonardo, T., Landi, M., Frignani, F. et al. CORINE land cover and floristic variation in a Mediterranean wetland. Environ Monit Assess 182, 141–154 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-010-1865-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-010-1865-x

Keywords

  • Indicator species
  • Landscape
  • Lake
  • MRPP
  • Ordinations
  • Spatial structure
  • Variation partitioning