Land-Use Change, Rural Practices and Animal Diversity

Dear Colleagues,

Traditional rural and land-use practices produce a typical mosaic structure at the landscape scale. Extensive agricultural landscapes are usually characterized by small man-made structures such as field boundaries, terraces, dry-stone walls, irrigation ponds and drinking troughs. These structures are recognized as important elements for the conservation of biodiversity, and they act as stepping stones and increase connectivity corridors among biological populations. In fact, these structures maintain the viability of animal metapopulations in many agricultural landscapes. However, in recent years, large land-use transformations have occurred, increasing the homogeneity of the rural landscape. Moreover, in many remote areas, traditional rural practices have been abandoned and these man-made structures are neglected and lost. In many areas, the abandonment of rural practices may have severe outcomes on biodiversity both at the local and regional scale, especially in the Mediterranean region where animal and plants are well adapted to human rural activities. The importance of these artificial structures is now acknowledged by ecologists, conservationists and even by policy makers, and in some cases, legislation on the conservation of biodiversity (i.e., in article 10 of the European Union Habitats Directive 92/43/EEC) has been adopted. Therefore, the objective of this Topic is to serve as a forum for advancing our scientific understanding of the effects of land-use changes in rural landscapes on animal diversity.

Dr. Sebastiano Salvidio
Dr. Giacomo Rosa
Topic Editors