Ecological landscape units mapping from land use data for Foz do Iguaçu/PR region - evidences of landscape fragmentation
ISBN 978-85-88783-11-9
Authors
1Adami, S.F.; 2Vogliotti, A.; 3Olegário, P.T.; 4Oliveira, P.A.
1UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DA INTEGRAÇÃO LATINO-AMERICANA Email: samuel.adami@unila.edu.br
2UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DA INTEGRAÇÃO LATINO-AMERICANA Email: alexandre.vogliotti@unila.edu.br
3UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DA INTEGRAÇÃO LATINO-AMERICANA Email: polianna.olegario@unila.edu.br
4UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DA INTEGRAÇÃO LATINO-AMERICANA Email: patricia.oliveira@unila.edu.br
Abstract
The biodiversity conservation at the landscape scale depends on the land uses as this affects the ecological processes at spatial, demographic and genetic levels. The magnitude of these effects on organisms will depend on the interactions between patches, corridors and the surrounding matrix. The landscape units spatial structure can promote the animal movement by provide adequate patches functioning as habitats for small populations or stepping stones among large source areas as environmental reserves. The enhanced flow by corridors concentrate the movement along protected paths by vegetation through a more or less hostile matrix. This research focused on mapping landscape units by analysis of land use spatial pattern at Foz do Iguaçu/PR region. The false color composite of LISS-3/Resourcesat-1 data was the basis for land use mapping by visual interpretation. From the land use map, matrices, patches and corridors were identified taking into consideration the area covered by the unit, its geometric pattern, boundaries characteristics, fragmentation level and neighborhood. Most common land uses were interpreted as matrices, the smaller areas surrounded by the matrices received various patches type classes, whilst elongated vegetation plots both connected and disconnected were identified as corridors. The Iguaçu National Park area, a large vegetation matrix, reclassified by its slope and soil characteristics into landscape subunits. Considering the study area (5,589 Km²), the agricultural and meadow land uses account 43% whist natural vegetation or forestry land uses represents 44%. This condition, perhaps, can hide a very compartmentalized land use distribution. The vegetation land use is concentrated at National Park area (29%), whilst 6.8% are vegetation patches and 7.8% are corridors dispersed through the agricultural and meadow matrices. This can indicate a higher fragmentation level at the landscape scale. The agricultural matrix (29%) characterized mainly by soybean monoculture, whose effects on the wildlife are still controversial. The vegetational matrix inside the National Park area, almost 22% has shallow or chemically poor soils associated with medium slope values, underlining a heterogeneous structure of this matrix unit. The contrast among the land uses spatial distribution and the landscape units spatial patterns, specially the vegetational areas, indicates a fragmented landscape. This condition may hamper the biodiversity flows at north-south direction among the National Park and the other large forests areas. This process was enhanced by a monoculture agricultural matrix with few and tiny vegetational patches. The general pattern obtained poses new issues and hypotheses about the landscape effects on the local species ecology.
Keywords
Landscape ecology; Spatial ecology; Geographic data analysis