Cultural landscape conservation: diffuse corridors in Lombardy Region (Italy)

摘要

Biodiversity is decreasing and environmental quality is deteriorating in cultural landscapes hence conservation is an important topic in European landscape ecology. To maintain cultural landscapes around Milan (Lombardy) we applied a new paradigm, theconcept of the diffuse corridor: a mosaic of land use connecting fragments of natural areas across a landscape. In our study area (868 km2) we drew a land use map and we collected faunal data (458 bird point counts). We selected a group of focal speciesand we built the diffuse corridor model using fuzzy logic. The effectiveness of model was verified by comparing the distribution of focal species in the area and the suitability elaborated by the model. Chi-square statistical testing showed a higher abundance of focal species in suitable areas indicated by the model. The model application also allowed the identification of the best areas in order to connect suitable areas to restore the landscape. From our results we suggest that the diffuse corridor concept may be an useful instrument to integrate agricultural landscapes (where we need to consider realistic limits imposed by the requirements of agricultural production) with a forest ecological network.