Not seeing the grass for the trees: Timber plantations and agriculture shrink tropical montane grassland by two-thirds over four decades in the Palani Hills, a Western Ghats Sky Island.
Not seeing the grass for the trees: Timber plantations and agriculture shrink tropical montane grassland by two-thirds over four decades in the Palani Hills, a Western Ghats Sky Island.
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DOI：
10.1371/journal.pone.0190003
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发表时间：
2018
期刊：
影响因子：
3.7
通讯作者：
Robin VV
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Arasumani M;Khan D;Das A;Lockwood I;Stewart R;Kiran RA;Muthukumar M;Bunyan M;Robin VV
热带山地生境，特别是草原，由于其特有的生物多样性、提供的生态系统服务以及它们是全球最受威胁的生境之一，迫切需要得到养护方面的关注。西高止山脉的舒拉天空群岛拥有一个原生森林草原矩阵，在上个世纪种植了异国情调的木材种植园。关于景观变化的流行话语是，主要森林已经被木材种植园所失去，最近法院的指令是恢复Shola森林树木。在这项研究中，我们研究的时空格局的景观变化在过去的40年中，在西高止山脉的山地栖息地的重要组成部分的帕拉尼山。利用卫星图像和实地调查，我们发现，在过去40年中，66%的天然草原和31%的天然森林已经消失。草原已经从占主导地位的、最连续的土地覆盖物变成了最稀有和最分散的土地覆盖物之一。它们被木材种植园所取代，并在较小程度上扩大了农业。我们发现，草地损失的空间格局不同的人工林损失的农业，可能是由入侵的种植园物种进入草地。我们确定了应优先保护的剩余草原，并根据帕拉尼山目前的管理政策，提出了保护和恢复草原的具体建议，该政策有利于大规模清除种植园，并强调恢复原生林。
Tropical montane habitats, grasslands, in particular, merit urgent conservation attention owing to the disproportionate levels of endemic biodiversity they harbour, the ecosystem services they provide, and the fact that they are among the most threatened habitats globally. The Shola Sky Islands in the Western Ghats host a matrix of native forest-grassland matrix that has been planted over the last century, with exotic timber plantations. The popular discourse on the landscape change is that mainly forests have been lost to the timber plantations and recent court directives are to restore Shola forest trees. In this study, we examine spatiotemporal patterns of landscape change over the last 40 years in the Palani Hills, a significant part of the montane habitat in the Western Ghats. Using satellite imagery and field surveys, we find that 66% of native grasslands and 31% of native forests have been lost over the last 40 years. Grasslands have gone from being the dominant, most contiguous land cover to one of the rarest and most fragmented. They have been replaced by timber plantations and, to a lesser extent, expanding agriculture. We find that the spatial pattern of grassland loss to plantations differs from the loss to agriculture, likely driven by the invasion of plantation species into grasslands. We identify remnant grasslands that should be prioritised for conservation and make specific recommendations for conservation and restoration of grasslands in light of current management policy in the Palani Hills, which favours large-scale removal of plantations and emphasises the restoration of native forests.
影响因子：
6.3
作者：
Burnham, KP;Anderson, DR
通讯作者：
Anderson, DR
影响因子：
5.9
作者：
Bond, William J.;Parr, Catherine L.
通讯作者：
Parr, Catherine L.
DOI：
10.2307/4003774
发表时间：
1999-09-01
期刊：
JOURNAL OF RANGE MANAGEMENT
影响因子：
--
作者：
Adler, PB;Morales, JM
通讯作者：
Morales, JM