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Amphibian conservation in traditional cultural landscapes: The case of Central Romania

Abstract:

Much of the rural landscapes of Central and Western Europe went through drastic changes during the past centuries as a result of rapid socio-economic development. In some Central and Eastern European countries, the geopolitical and institutional instability slowed the pace of the modern economic development, thus many regions are still characterized by less intensive ('traditional') landuse practices. In this study we address the value of traditional landuse practices for amphibians from Southern Transylvania, Romania. The region includes a Natura 2000 Site of Community Importance of 85,000 hectares. We show that the great majority and a high diversity of amphibian ponds were created and maintained by traditional human activities in the studied rural region. These ponds support rich amphibian communities with dense population networks; we documented these for two anurans: the Common Toad (Bufo bufo) and the Yellow Bellied Toad (Bombina variegata). We conclude that large areas of this region are in favourable conservation status for amphibians and their habitats. The traditional landuse practices are not a free, proactive option for most of the inhabitants of rural regions; therefore, they are vulnerable to change (e.g. agriculture intensification and mechanization). In order to better understand the opportunities and challenges of managing these cultural landscapes for amphibians we propose a social-ecological conservation framework. Such a framework simultaneously considers the main features of the social system (e.g. social and economic aspirations of people, governance structures, knowledge types and attitudes towards the natural and cultural environment), as the landscape features (e.g. topography, landcover types, bioclimatic conditions, vegetation, hydrology) and the ways how these two interact to influence wetland connectivity, pond quality and amphibian population structure. Examples are given on the implications of adopting a social-ecological framework on amphibian conservation in cultural landscapes.