In case study 1 we will jointly work with the local stakeholders to provide new insights on the conservation value of each pond within the pondscape. This pondscape is particularly interesting since it is the most northeastern location in which a near threatened and endemic amphibian species (Pleurodelles walt) could be found in the Iberian Peninsula. The sustainability of this pondscape and by extension of its metacommunity functioning is endangered by several reasons, being 2 of them directly linked to connectivity. Firstly, climate change future scenarios predict drought increase in the region, so in the future a loss of connectivity due to habitat loss is expected. Secondly, the flagship species of the communities is an amphibian, that is also the top predator of the food web, and if isolation increase really accelerate extinction of large bodied predators of more isolated patches, this will have a tremendous impact on the overall metacommunity structure. Thus the urgency in provide new insights for a more sustainable conservation actions. Combining the theoretical and empirical approaches previously built and validated (WP1 and WP2) and also empirical samples of some ponds of the system (integrated samples of pond macrofauna) we will identify “sensible” patches for the overall Metanetwork functioning in this real pondscape.
Therefor the past April we have went for a 3 intesive days of field trip. The objective to sample at least 3 ponds for each pond cluster identifed in the pond network.
Perelló pond network, with the identified pond clusters in different colors
The car full of material for the sampling, and of expectations of what we will found in the ponds, since many of them were unkown for us, just localized by google photos.
...and as you can see it was a very succesful fieldtrip, that we have enjoyed until the last minute.