Função ecológica de habitats marginais lineares em áreas Mediterrânicas de agricultura intensiva: Definição de limiares e metas de conservação usando pequenos mamíferos

Linear field margins (LFM) in modern European agricultural landscapes are often considered biodiversity reservoirs linked to essential ecosystem services (EES), but how environmental conditions and management practices within and beyond LFM impact wildlife remains unclear [4]. Also, while SM are considered keystone species in agroecosystems and ideal ecological models [8], few studies have used this group to investigate how LFM may affect ecological processes in intensive farmland. In particular, SM responses to farm intensification have been largely overlooked in Mediterranean areas, where SM diversity is notably high, yet seasonally exposed to severe vegetation dryness, further affecting populations and communities in time and space. This may result in a poor fit of EU farm management policies, which are notably shaped by studies conducted in northern Europe [15]. To overcome these important, yet challenging knowledge gaps, the project EcoMargins aims to provide effective quantitative methods for valuing LFM based on SM, and for setting biodiversity conservation thresholds and targets in intensive Mediterranean agroecosystems. For this, the following specific goals will be pursued: 1) Describe and predict disturbance and farm management intensity within and beyond LFM using multi-source ground and remote sensing environmental data. 2) Identify the ecological attributes of LFM affecting SM richness, abundance, functional diversity and turnover across disturbance, management and aridity gradients. 3) Compare SM demography, dispersal and behavioural traits in agroecosystems with different amounts and types of linear and non-linear field margins. 4) Assess and predict SM (meta)population viability under different scenarios of LFM and farm management intensification across aridity/seasonality gradients. 5) Evaluate how SM community and population thresholds associate to key EES typically provided by LFM (e.g. soil organic matter, heat control, forage provision) These goals underpin the following main hypotheses: H1 – SM abundance and diversity are higher in wider and more heterogeneous LFM from less intensive landscapes, though the strength of these relations should be largely driven by the changes in SM traits and interactions under different aridity conditions. H2 – Specialist species are more dependent on LFM quality, and are more affected by habitat disturbance (e.g. seasonality, farming practices) than generalists, which can use a wider range of resources. H3 – Reproduction and dispersal in hedged agricultural landscapes increase with the density of high-quality LFM, particularly during wetter, more productive seasons. H4 – Increasing density of high-quality LFM increases SM diversity, and decreases (meta)population extinction risk of endangered habitat specialists. H5 – SM diversity and population persistence are positively correlated to important regulating and supporting EES related to soil quality and primary productivity within and beyond LFM. In short, EcoMargins proposes to advance our knowledge on how LFM affect biodiversity, the management implications in Mediterranean farmland, and how these may differ from those applied to wetter, less seasonal landscapes from northern Europe. Additionally, as complementary/auxiliary goals, the project will also assess the effectiveness of distinct non-invasive techniques for detecting SM, and the adequacy of ground-based vs. remote sensing variables to predict SM habitat suitability.