RT Journal Article
T1 Incidence of Large Wood Borers in the Conservation of dehesa Islands Forests in Southwestern Spain
A1 Domínguez Nevado, Luis
A1 López Pantoja, Gloria
A1 Cremades, David
A1 Paramio Correa, Antonia María
A1 Hidalgo Fernández, Pablo José
A1 Sánchez Osorio, Israel
AB The dehesa is a traditional agrosilvopastoral ecosystem characterized by a savanna-likestructure. It has been in decline since the middle of the last century, in particular in agricultural environments where it has been relegated to isolated forests. This paper presents a study into the reductionover the past 50 years. One of the main causes of this decline has been identified as xylophagousinsects, specifically the wood borer Cerambyx welensii Kuster (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae). Based onestimations in both the population size, using Jolly Seber models, and the level of tree injury, using asingle-index model, the study investigates the role the insect has played in the decline of the dehesa.Surface area loss was found to be greater than 50%, while canopy cover has diminished linearly overthe period studied, with the risk of disappearance of the woodland increasing in the same magnitudeas borer population density. The highest wood borer population densities observed correspondedto stands with an average canopy cover loss of 1.68% a year, indicating a risk of completely losingthe forest cover in the short term (10–30 years). The proposed tree injury index was successful incategorizing the size of the insect population, and seems to be a useful indicator for describing therelationship between the two variables. According to this indicator, woodlands with more than 10%of trees with severe or very severe injuries are at risk. Follow-up work should be undertaken toinvestigate long-term demographic changes in wood borer populations, and management practicesshould be developed to reduce the population size, minimize forest loss and preserve these relict oak trees in unconnected landscapes
PB MDPI
SN 1999-4907 (electrónico)
YR 2022
FD 2022
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10272/20762
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10272/20762
LA eng
NO Domínguez, L., López-Pantoja, G., Cremades, D., Paramio, A., Hidalgo, P. J., & Sánchez-Osorio, I. (2022). Incidence of Large Wood Borers in the Conservation of dehesa Islands Forests in Southwestern Spain. In Forests (Vol. 13, Issue 3, p. 413). MDPI AG. https://doi.org/10.3390/f13030413
NO The field work was undertaken within projects funded by the Council for the Environmentof the Regional Government of AndalusiaWe received strong support from Rubén Fernández Villarán and CristinaPérez-Carral for the management and decisions about the GIS. We are also grateful to E. Paramio,L. Borruecos, J. M. Caraballo, J. A. Domínguez-Feria, D. Barja, F. J. García, C. Malia, A. Rincón,M. Salado, M. A. Gay and especially R. Tapias and P. Alesso for their help with the monitoring carried out. Further, we would like to thank all of the landowners for the permission granted to work ontheir estates
DS Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Huelva
RD 15 jul 2026