The Role of Cultural Landscapes in the Delivery of Provisioning Ecosystem Services in Protected Areas
1
Department of Biology and Geology, University of Almería, 04120 Almería, Spain
2
Department of Applied Mathematics, Rey Juan Carlos University, 28933 Madrid, Spain
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
†
These authors contributed equally to this work.
Sustainability 2019, 11(9), 2471; https://doi.org/10.3390/su11092471
Received: 27 March 2019 / Revised: 20 April 2019 / Accepted: 23 April 2019 / Published: 26 April 2019
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Agriculture, Landscape, Ecosystem Services and Biodiversity: New Challenges for Sustainable Development)
The aim of this paper is to assess and highlight the significance of cultural landscapes in protected areas, considering both biodiversity and the delivery of provisioning ecosystem services. In order to do that, we analyzed 26 protected areas in Andalusia (Spain), all of them Natural or National Parks, regarding some of their ecosystem services (agriculture, livestock grazing, microclimate regulation, environmental education and tourism) and diversity of the four terrestrial vertebrate classes: amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds. A cluster analysis was also run in order to group the 26 protected areas according to their dominant landscape. The results show that protected areas dominated by dehesa (a heterogeneous system containing different states of ecological maturity), or having strong presence of olive groves, present a larger area of delivery of provisioning ecosystem services, on average. These cultural landscapes play an essential role not only for biodiversity conservation but also as providers of provisioning ecosystem services.
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Keywords:
biodiversity; Natural Parks; cultural ecosystem services; regulating ecosystem services; drivers of change
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MDPI and ACS Style
Maldonado, A.D.; Ramos-López, D.; Aguilera, P.A. The Role of Cultural Landscapes in the Delivery of Provisioning Ecosystem Services in Protected Areas. Sustainability 2019, 11, 2471. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11092471
AMA Style
Maldonado AD, Ramos-López D, Aguilera PA. The Role of Cultural Landscapes in the Delivery of Provisioning Ecosystem Services in Protected Areas. Sustainability. 2019; 11(9):2471. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11092471
Chicago/Turabian StyleMaldonado, Ana D., Darío Ramos-López, and Pedro A. Aguilera 2019. "The Role of Cultural Landscapes in the Delivery of Provisioning Ecosystem Services in Protected Areas" Sustainability 11, no. 9: 2471. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11092471
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