<i>SPECIES-AREA RELATIONSHIPS IN GUADALENTÍN SALT STEPPES (SE IBERIAN, SPAIN) AND IMPLICATIONS FOR CONSERVATION, RESTORATION AND MANAGEMENT</i>

Abstract

The aim of the study is to investigate the relationship between the number of plant species in Guadalentín salt steppe fragments and their area, in order to obtain the model describing this relation, to offer an explanation of species-area relationship by means of the main ecological theories and to apply the results to achieve conservation strategies for the study site. Power function and exponential models describe accurately the species-area relationship in Guadalentín salt steppes. Path analysis confirms that contribution of fragment size to species number is approximately twice that of habitats, although both Equilibrium Hypothesis and Habitat Diversity Hypothesis should be considered. The study of species-area relation constitutes a framework to obtain conservation strategies. So, fragments with positive residual values in the species-area curves could have more interest of conservation than those with negative residual values because of their greater species richness. Comparing the species-area curve with curves obtained with data for series of 2, 3 and 4 islands randomly selected, we conclude that SLOSS (single large or several small reserves) effect is not present in the study site. So, conservating two small fragments would be better than conservating a single large one of the same total area.