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Article Dans Une Revue Journal of Environmental Management Année : 2008

The impact of human frequentation on coastal vegetation in a Biosphere Reserve

Résumé

We aimed to assess the impacts of recreational trampling on rare species, plant communities and landscape structure in the Iroise Biosphere Reserve (western France). Focusing on coastal grasslands, we first identified indicators discriminating human-induced short grasslands (i.e. maintained short by intensive trampling) from natural short grasslands (i.e. maintained by environmental constraints): the presence of lichens and succulent or woody species, which are known to be highly sensitive to trampling, as well as a shallow soil were good indicators of natural short grasslands. Recreational activities affected the majority of plots containing rare species, but one third of rare species (according to their habitat preference) appeared currently not threatened by recreational activities. The other rare species were found in grasslands with low trampling intensity and were not found in grasslands with greater trampling intensity. One lichen species (Teloshistes flavicans) was not affected by trampling intensity, while two plants species (Scilla verna and Ophioglossum lusitanicum) showed higher abundances when trampling was low to medium. When it occurs in natural short grasslands, tourist trampling reduced drastically plant species richness. However, when considering maritime high grasslands, we observed that species richness was higher under low trampling vs. no trampling, but decreased at higher trampling intensity. At a landscape scale, the mean annual rate of path creation was about 1,6% and trampling has already completely destroyed 3.5 ha of natural coastal vegetation, created 31 ha of short grasslands which represent 50.8% of the whole short grassland habitat of the island, and affected respectively 41% and 15% of natural short grasslands and maritime-high grasslands. One of the main suggestions for managers to minimise trampling impacts should be to protect totally areas of rocky soil covered by short grassland that are still non-trampled and not impacted. Fortunately, this appears compatible with a relatively free access of visitors to coastal areas, as tourists can be redirected towards high maritime grasslands, a habitat which is less impacted by tourism in terms of affected surface, soil cover, loss of species, or presence of rare species host.
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Dates et versions

hal-02554671 , version 1 (26-04-2020)

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Christian Kerbiriou, Isabelle Leviol, Frédéric Jiguet, Romain Julliard. The impact of human frequentation on coastal vegetation in a Biosphere Reserve. Journal of Environmental Management, 2008, 88 (4), pp.715-728. ⟨10.1016/j.jenvman.2007.03.034⟩. ⟨hal-02554671⟩
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