Järvselja looduskaitseala kaitsekorralduskava 2012-2021

Vastavalt looduskaitseseaduse §-le 25 on kaitsekorralduskava hoiualade ja kaitsealade alapõhise kaitse korraldamise aluseks. Kaitsekorralduskava kinnitab Keskkonnaameti peadirektor. Teave kaitsekorralduskava kinnitamise kohta avalikustatakse Keskkonnaministeeriumi kodulehel. Käesoleva Järvselja looduskaitseala kaitsekorralduskava (edaspidi kava) eesmärk on: • Anda lühike ülevaade kaitstavast alast - selle kaitsekorrast, kaitse-eesmärkidest, rahvusvahelisest staatusest, maakasutusest, huvigruppidest ning alal läbiviidavast riiklikust seirest; • Analüüsida ala eesmärke ning anda hinnang iga põhiväärtuseks oleva liigi, elupaiga vm väärtuse seisundile; • Arvestades alale seatud eesmärke määrata mõõdetavad kaitse-eesmärgid ja kaitsekorralduse oodatavad tulemused kaitsekorraldusperioodi lõpuks ning 30 aasta perspektiivis; • Anda ülevaade peamistest väärtusi mõjutavatest tegevustest, kirjeldada kaitseks vajalikke meetmeid koos oodatavate tulemustega; • M äärata põhiväärtuste säilimisele, taastamisele ja tutvustamisele suunatud kaitsekorralduslike tegevuste elluviimise plaan koos tööde mahu, koha, ulatuse kirjelduse ja orienteeruva maksumusega; • Luua alusdokument kaitseala kaitsekorralduslike tööde elluviimiseks ja rahastamiseks. Kava koostamisel juhindutakse Eesti Vabariigi kehtivast seadusandlusest ja Kaitsekorralduskava koostamise juhendist (2011). Käesolev kava on koostatud olemasoleva Järvselja looduskaitseala (edaspidi kaitseala) kohta. Kava on koostanud Eino Laas, Taavi Tattar, Peep Teppo ja Taimi Paal 2007. aastal. Kava viis kehtivasse vormi Keskkonnaameti Jõgeva-Tartu regiooni kaitse planeerimise spetsialist Kristel Tatsi (7302257; [email protected]), kes lisaks täiendas sisulist osa järgmiste punktidega: riikliku seire kirjeldus; kaitsekorralduse tulemuslikkuse hindamine. Täpsustatud on ka kaitstavate liikide kohta käivat informatsiooni tulenevalt Keskkonnaregistri 2012. a andmetest ning EMÜ ettepanekul lisati tegevuskavasse puistu inventuuri läbiviimine Ürgmetsa sihtkaitsevööndis

High ecosystem service delivery potential of small woodlands in agricultural landscapes

Global forest loss and fragmentation have strongly increased the frequency of forest patches smaller than a few hectares. Little is known about the biodiversity and ecosystem service supply potential of such small woodlands in comparison to larger forests. As it is widely recognized that high biodiversity levels increase ecosystem functionality and the delivery of multiple ecosystem services, small, isolated woodlands are expected to have a lower potential for ecosystem service delivery than large forests hosting more species. We collected data on the diversity of six taxonomic groups covering invertebrates, plants and fungi, and on the supply potential of five ecosystem services and one disservice within 224 woodlands distributed across temperate Europe. We related their ability to simultaneously provide multiple ecosystem services (multiservice delivery potential) at different performance levels to biodiversity of all studied taxonomic groups (multidiversity), forest patch size and age, as well as habitat availability and connectivity within the landscape, while accounting for macroclimate, soil properties and forest structure. Unexpectedly, despite their lower multidiversity, smaller woodlands had the potential to deliver multiple services at higher performance levels per area than larger woodlands of similar age, probably due to positive edge effects on the supply potential of several ecosystem services. Biodiversity only affected multiservice delivery potential at a low performance level as well as some individual ecosystem services. The importance of other drivers of ecosystem service supply potential by small woodlands in agricultural landscapes also depended on the level of performance and varied with the individual ecosystem service considered. Synthesis and applications. Large, ancient woodlands host high levels of biodiversity and can therefore deliver a number of ecosystem services. In contrast, smaller woodlands in agricultural landscapes, especially ancient woodlands, have a higher potential to deliver multiple ecosystem services on a per area basis. Despite their important contribution to agricultural landscape multifunctionality, small woodlands are not currently considered by public policies. There is thus an urgent need for targeted policy instruments to ensure their adequate management and future conservation in order to either achieve multiservice delivery at high levels or to maximize the delivery of specific ecosystem services

High ecosystem service delivery potential of small woodlands in agricultural landscapes

Global forest loss and fragmentation have strongly increased the frequency of forest patches smaller than a few hectares. Little is known about the biodiversity and ecosystem service supply potential of such small woodlands in comparison to larger forests. As it is widely recognized that high biodiversity levels increase ecosystem functionality and the delivery of multiple ecosystem services, small, isolated woodlands are expected to have a lower potential for ecosystem service delivery than large forests hosting more species. We collected data on the diversity of six taxonomic groups covering invertebrates, plants and fungi, and on the supply potential of five ecosystem services and one disservice within 224 woodlands distributed across temperate Europe. We related their ability to simultaneously provide multiple ecosystem services (multiservice delivery potential) at different performance levels to biodiversity of all studied taxonomic groups (multidiversity), forest patch size and age, as well as habitat availability and connectivity within the landscape, while accounting for macroclimate, soil properties and forest structure. Unexpectedly, despite their lower multidiversity, smaller woodlands had the potential to deliver multiple services at higher performance levels per area than larger woodlands of similar age, probably due to positive edge effects on the supply potential of several ecosystem services. Biodiversity only affected multiservice delivery potential at a low performance level as well as some individual ecosystem services. The importance of other drivers of ecosystem service supply potential by small woodlands in agricultural landscapes also depended on the level of performance and varied with the individual ecosystem service considered. Synthesis and applications. Large, ancient woodlands host high levels of biodiversity and can therefore deliver a number of ecosystem services. In contrast, smaller woodlands in agricultural landscapes, especially ancient woodlands, have a higher potential to deliver multiple ecosystem services on a per area basis. Despite their important contribution to agricultural landscape multifunctionality, small woodlands are not currently considered by public policies. There is thus an urgent need for targeted policy instruments to ensure their adequate management and future conservation in order to either achieve multiservice delivery at high levels or to maximize the delivery of specific ecosystem services

Habitat properties are key drivers of Borrelia burgdorferi (s.l.) prevalence in Ixodes ricinus populations of deciduous forest fragments

Background: The tick Ixodes ricinus has considerable impact on the health of humans and other terrestrial animals because it transmits several tick-borne pathogens (TBPs) such as B. burgdorferi (sensu lato), which causes Lyme borreliosis (LB). Small forest patches of agricultural landscapes provide many ecosystem services and also the disservice of LB risk. Biotic interactions and environmental filtering shape tick host communities distinctively between specific regions of Europe, which makes evaluating the dilution effect hypothesis and its influence across various scales challenging. Latitude, macroclimate, landscape and habitat properties drive both hosts and ticks and are comparable metrics across Europe. Therefore, we instead assess these environmental drivers as indicators and determine their respective roles for the prevalence of B. burgdorferi in I. ricinus. Methods: We sampled I. ricinus and measured environmental properties of macroclimate, landscape and habitat quality of forest patches in agricultural landscapes along a European macroclimatic gradient. We used linear mixed models to determine significant drivers and their relative importance for nymphal and adult B. burgdorferi prevalence. We suggest a new prevalence index, which is pool-size independent. Results: During summer months, our prevalence index varied between 0 and 0.4 per forest patch, indicating a low to moderate disservice. Habitat properties exerted a fourfold larger influence on B. burgdorferi prevalence than macroclimate and landscape properties combined. Increasingly available ecotone habitat of focal forest patches diluted and edge density at landscape scale amplified B. burgdorferi prevalence. Indicators of habitat attractiveness for tick hosts (food resources and shelter) were the most important predictors within habitat patches. More diverse and abundant macro- and microhabitat had a diluting effect, as it presumably diversifies the niches for tick-hosts and decreases the probability of contact between ticks and their hosts and hence the transmission likelihood.[br/] Conclusions: Diluting effects of more diverse habitat patches would pose another reason to maintain or restore high biodiversity in forest patches of rural landscapes. We suggest classifying habitat patches by their regulating services as dilution and amplification habitat, which predominantly either decrease or increase B. burgdorferi prevalence at local and landscape scale and hence LB risk. Particular emphasis on promoting LB-diluting properties should be put on the management of those habitats that are frequently used by humans. In the light of these findings, climate change may be of little concern for LB risk at local scales, but this should be evaluated further

Environmental drivers of Ixodes ricinus abundance in forest fragments of rural European landscapes

Background: The castor bean tick (Ixodes ricinus) transmits infectious diseases such as Lyme borreliosis, which constitutes an important ecosystem disservice. Despite many local studies, a comprehensive understanding of the key drivers of tick abundance at the continental scale is still lacking. We analyze a large set of environmental factors as potential drivers of I. ricinus abundance. Our multi-scale study was carried out in deciduous forest fragments dispersed within two contrasting rural landscapes of eight regions, along a macroclimatic gradient stretching from southern France to central Sweden and Estonia. We surveyed the abundance of I. ricinus, plant community composition, forest structure and soil properties and compiled data on landscape structure, macroclimate and habitat properties. We used linear mixed models to analyze patterns and derived the relative importance of the significant drivers. Results: Many drivers had, on their own, either a moderate or small explanatory value for the abundance of I. ricinus, but combined they explained a substantial part of variation. This emphasizes the complex ecology of I. ricinus and the relevance of environmental factors for tick abundance. Macroclimate only explained a small fraction of variation, while properties of macro- and microhabitat, which buffer macroclimate, had a considerable impact on tick abundance. The amount of forest and the composition of the surrounding rural landscape were additionally important drivers of tick abundance. Functional (dispersules) and structural (density of tree and shrub layers) properties of the habitat patch played an important role. Various diversity metrics had only a small relative importance. Ontogenetic tick stages showed pronounced differences in their response. The abundance of nymphs and adults is explained by the preceding stage with a positive relationship, indicating a cumulative effect of drivers. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that the ecosystem disservices of tick-borne diseases, via the abundance of ticks, strongly depends on habitat properties and thus on how humans manage ecosystems from the scale of the microhabitat to the landscape. This study stresses the need to further evaluate the interaction between climate change and ecosystem management on I. ricinus abundance

Metsataimede levimisedukus avamaastike puiskoridorides

Väitekirja elektrooniline versioon ei sisalda publikatsiooneSuurepinnalise põllumajanduse tõttu on metsad maastikus killustunud ja ökoloogiliselt isoleeritud, mis omakorda mõjub negatiivselt metsadega seotud elurikkuse püsimisele ja levile. Et parandada elupaikade maastikulist ühendatust ning toetada elupaigaspetsiifiliste liikide levikut, on pakutud välja ökoloogiliste koridoride tugisüsteem, mis metsade puhul tähendab puiskoridoride (alleede, puuridade ja põõsaribade) paigutumist avamaastikusse metsatukkade vahele. Oma doktoritöös uurisin, kas puiskoridorid toetavad metsataimede levikut ning millised on koridoride kriitilised struktuursed omadused ja koridore ümbritseva maastiku eripärad, mis seavad metsataimedele ökoloogilised piiranguid levimisel metsadest puiskoridoridesse. Nõudeid ja piiranguid hindasin ka ja metsataimede tunnuste põhjal. Käesoleva doktoritöö tulemused viitavad sellele, et puiskoridorid ei toimi siiski kui metsataimede levimist toetavad maastikustruktuurid. Isegi metsaga vahetus ühenduses olevates koridorides kahanes metsaspetsialistide liigirikkus järsult juba esimesel viiel kuni kümnel meetril; kaugematesse koridoridesse jõudsid aga vaid üksikud. Ainult sellised metsataimed, mille levised kanduvad pika maa taha, näiteks imetajate või lindude abil, suudavad koridoris kaugemale levida, kuid kuna needsamad liigid suudavad ka juba järgmisse metsatukka levida, siis pole puiskoridoril neile erilist lisaväärtust pakkuda. Lisaks limiteerib metsataimi koridorides konkurents teiste taimedega, mis saavad toetust servamõjust tingitud lisavalgustatusest. Arvestades looduskaitselisi eesmärke, tuleks maastike planeerimisel keskenduda juba olemasolevatele laiadele puiskoridoridele, ja eriti nendele, mis asuvad ajalooliselt järjepidevalt eksisteeriva metsa läheduses ning mille aastakümnete jooksul välja arenenud puistu struktuur suudab leevendada servaefekti mõjusid. Sellised koridorid on näiteks kahe- või enamarealised vanad alleed, millel on juba väljakujunenud kaarjas võrastik ning külgmised allalaskuvad oksad. Maastiku planeerimises ja liigendamisel tuleks eelistada olemasolevaid puiskoridore ning nende sujuvat noorendamist uute alleede istutamisele, kuna uutes koridorides kulub aastakümneid sobivate struktuursete tingimuste moodustumiseks.Large-scale agricultural and sylvicultural activities have led to the fragmentation and isolation of both ancient and recent forests in landscape. In afforested areas, the formation of forest-specific vegetation is impeded by the inhospitable surrounding agricultural matrix and by poor dispersal ability of many forest plants. Landscape corridors are proposed as a means to increase the connectivity between species source and target habitats, therein wooded corridors should enhance the dispersal of forest-specific species. The aim of this thesis was to evaluate the functionality of wooded landscape corridors as dispersal enhancing landscape elements for forest plants of deciduous forests. The results of this thesis indicate that wooded corridors in their present state do not perform well as dispersal enhancing structures for specialist forest plants. Even in well-connected corridors, most of forest specialists colonised only the first 5–10 m of the corridor, and only very few species could migrate to isolated corridors. Mainly those forest plants are successful that utilise long-distance dispersal vectors, such as mammals or birds, and those that can tolerate habitat edge mediated conditions dominating in corridors. Positive signals of the use of corridors by forest-dwelling plants were mostly created by shade tolerant generalist species. Analysis results showed that forest species can be supported only by wide corridors that are directly connected to ancient (source) forest, and those that have structures reducing edge effects. Such structures are formed in corridors with a double line of mature trees (e.g. old alleys) that have wide-arching canopies and lateral side branches. Landscape planning and conservation management of rural landscapes should target first on existing wooded corridors before planting new tree lines, as the formation of suitable habitat conditions takes decades or centurie

Forest edges reduce slug (but not snail) activity-density across Western Europe

Fragmentation strongly shapes the distribution of organisms within forest patches through contrasting environmental conditions between the edge and interior habitat. Edge-to-interior distribution patterns are, however, poorly studied for litter- and soil-dwelling fauna, such as terrestrial gastropods, despite their high densities and significant impact on ecosystem processes, as both herbivores and detritivores. Therefore, we investigated edge-to-interior abundance patterns of terrestrial gastropods in 224 fragmented forest patches across Western Europe. Catching over 15,000 gastropods, we found that slug abundance is reduced in forest edges, while snail abundance shows no response on the edge effect. We hypothesize that these patterns could be explained by higher drought tolerance of snails, since forest edges have reduced air and soil humidity and elevated temperatures compared to forest interiors. Reduced slug abundance in forest edges potentially has ecological consequences for herbivory in and outside forest patches and nutrient cycling

Evaluating functional diversity: missing trait data and the importance of species abundance structure and data transformation

Functional diversity (FD) is an important component of biodiversity that quantifies the difference in functional traits between organisms. However, FD studies are often limited by the availability of trait data and FD indices are sensitive to data gaps. The distribution of species abundance and trait data, and its transformation, may further affect the accuracy of indices when data is incomplete. Using an existing approach, we simulated the effects of missing trait data by gradually removing data from a plant, an ant and a bird community dataset (12, 59, and 8 plots containing 62, 297 and 238 species respectively). We ranked plots by FD values calculated from full datasets and then from our increasingly incomplete datasets and compared the ranking between the original and virtually reduced datasets to assess the accuracy of FD indices when used on datasets with increasingly missing data. Finally, we tested the accuracy of FD indices with and without data transformation, and the effect of missing trait data per plot or per the whole pool of species. FD indices became less accurate as the amount of missing data increased, with the loss of accuracy depending on the index. But, where transformation improved the normality of the trait data, FD values from incomplete datasets were more accurate than before transformation. The distribution of data and its transformation are therefore as important as data completeness and can even mitigate the effect of missing data. Since the effect of missing trait values pool-wise or plot-wise depends on the data distribution, the method should be decided case by case. Data distribution and data transformation should be given more careful consideration when designing, analysing and interpreting FD studies, especially where trait data are missing. To this end, we provide the R package “traitor” to facilitate assessments of missing trait data

Functional trait variation of forest understorey plant communities across Europe

International audienceGlobal environmental changes are expected to alter the functional characteristics of understorey herb-layer communities, potentially affecting forest ecosystem functioning. However, little is known about what drives the variability of functional traits in forest understories. Here, we assessed the role of different environmental drivers in shaping the functional trait distribution of understorey herbs in fragmented forests across three spatial scales. We focused on 708 small, deciduous forest patches located in 16 agricultural landscape windows, spanning a 2500-km macroclimatic gradient across the temperate forest biome in Europe. We estimated the relative effect of patch-scale, landscape-scale and macroclimatic variables on the community mean and variation of plant height, specific leaf area and seed mass. Macroclimatic variables (monthly temperature and precipitation extremes) explained the largest proportion of variation in community trait means (on average 77% of the explained variation). In contrast, patch-scale factors dominated in explaining community trait variation (on average 68% of the explained variation). Notably, patch age, size and internal heterogeneity had a positive effect on the community-level variability. Landscape-scale variables explained only a minor part of the variation in both trait distribution properties. The variation explained by shared combinations of the variable groups was generally negligible. These findings highlight the importance of considering multiple spatial scales in predictions of environmental-change effects on the functionality of forest understories. We propose that forest management sustainability could benefit from conserving larger, historically continuous and internally heterogeneous forest patches to maximise ecosystem service diversity in rural landscapes

The contribution of patch-scale conditions is greater than that of macroclimate in explaining local plant diversity in fragmented forests across Europe

Aim: Macroclimate is a major determinant of large-scale diversity patterns. However, the influence of smaller-scale factors on local diversity across large spatial extents is not well documented. Here, we quantify the relative importance of local (patch-scale), landscape-scale and macroclimatic drivers of herbaceous species diversity in small forest patches in agricultural landscapes across Europe. Location: Deciduous forest patches in eight regions along a macroclimatic gradient from southern France to central Sweden and Estonia. Methods: The diversity of forest specialists and generalists at three levels (whole forest patch, sampling plots within patches and between scales) was related to patch-scale (forest area, age, abiotic and biotic heterogeneity), landscape-scale (amount of forest, grasslands and hedgerows around the patch, patch isolation) and macroclimatic variables (temperature and precipitation) using generalized linear mixed models and variation partitioning for each group of variables. Results: The total amount of explained variation in diversity ranged from 8% for plot-scale diversity of generalists to 54% for patch-scale diversity of forest specialists. Patch-scale variables always explained more than 60% of the explained variation in diversity, mainly due to the positive effect of within-patch heterogeneity on patch-scale and between-scale diversities and to the positive effect of patch age on plot-scale diversity of forest specialists. Landscape-scale variables mainly contributed to the amount of explained variation in plot-scale diversity, being more important for forest specialists (21%) than for generalists (18%). Macroclimatic variables contributed a maximum of 11% to the plot-scale diversity of generalists. Main conclusions: Macroclimate poorly predicts local diversity across Europe, and herbaceous diversity is mainly explained by habitat features, less so by landscape structure. We show the importance of conserving old forest patches as refugia for typical forest species, and of enhancing the landscape context around the patches by reducing the degree of disturbance caused by agriculture