Landscapes Forest and Global Change - ESA - Escola Superior ...

M.C. Silva et al. 2010. Using Business and Biodiversity to put Conservation into practice
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2. Methodology
In spite of the estate dimension, we needed to develop a useful and scientific approach which
was successful to our work. So, our main methodology, designated by ‘Habitat Approach’, is
focused on assessing the structure and development of an habitat mainly through the analysis of
plant communities (Braun-Blanquet, 1979). A phytosociological approach can integrate the
environmental variables and summarize practically the whole floristic diversity as well as many
of the ecological relationships between the different organisms (Loidi, 1994). Further on, we’ve
got to know if the habitat structure provides area, shelter, food and/or mutualism areas for
different fauna species. At the end, we analyze the whole Esporão estate at a macro scale level,
through the units of land use and conservation types, to see if these areas act as ecological
corridors. GIS was used for mapping all the habitats, plant communities, RELAPE (rare,
endemic, localized, threat and endangered) species. According to Lengyel et. al (2008), habitat
monitoring scheme should be based on remote sensing to record changes in land cover and
habitat types, with complementary field mapping.
Figure 1: Habitat approach scheme
3. Results
The Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP) includes the flora, habitats and fauna assessment, and also
the evaluation of the vineyard’s natural enemies, as well as definition of High Conservation
Value Areas (HCVA) and agroforestry management. There were identified 11 RELAPE species,
namely: 6 orchids which are listed in CITES (Serapias strictiflora Welw., Serapias lingua L.,
Serapias parvifloraParl., Orchis papilionacea L., Orchis morio L. and Ophrys tenthredinifera
Willd.), 1 Directive Habitat specie (Narcissus bulbocodium L.), 3 european endemism (Linaria
spartea (L.) Chaz, Verbascum thapsus L., Phlomis lychnitis L.) and 2 iberian endemisms
(Genista polyanthos R. Roem., Narcissus jonquilla L.).
We will describe the main land uses and the Habitats Directive 92/43/CEE of Esporão Estate
(Table 1), which can contain different varieties of vegetation types with different conservation
values, as seen bellow. The current paper will focus only on plant ecology, leaving the fauna
analysis for a next paper.
Vineyards and Olive groves
As wine and olive oil production is the main business of Esporão, it was necessary to make an
evaluation of these areas. A lack of proper ecological structures was found, namely habitats for
enhancing natural enemies. Some of these structures are the Beetle Banks and usually are made
of flowers, from gramineae and compositae family, and are used mainly as a form of biological
pest control to reduce the use of pesticides and insecticides. So, restoring grassland margins in
Forest Landscapes and Global Change-New Frontiers in Management, Conservation and Restoration. Proceedings of the IUFRO Landscape Ecology
Working Group International Conference, September 21-27, 2010, Bragança, Portugal. J.C. Azevedo, M. Feliciano, J. Castro & M.A. Pinto (eds.)
2010, Instituto Politécnico de Bragança, Bragança, Portugal.