Work

Bridging human drivers on riparian plant metacommunity structure along a dryland natural-agricultural-urban gradient

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: The expansion of urban and agricultural land uses drives plant diversity loss in drylands, affecting nature’s contributions to people. However, how these drivers shape the taxonomic structure of dryland plant metacommunities remains poorly understood. We assessed the influence of land-use context and habitat fragmentation on riparian plant β-diversity along a natural-agricultural-urban gradient in the South American Monte Desert. We sampled riparian plant communities at 86 sites, quantifying abundance-based β-diversity (Bray-Curtis index, partitioned into turnover and nestedness) and estimating fragmentation via the Landscape Division Index derived from remote sensing. Contrary to expectations, taxonomic homogenisation peaked at intermediate fragmentation levels, while severely fragmented urban landscapes exhibited the highest taxonomic dissimilarities ( p < 0.05). Fragmentation explained 31% of the variation in metacommunity structure, with species turnover emerging as the dominant process driving community dissimilarities. These findings indicate that fragmented riparian habitats can sustain taxonomically distinct native communities through species replacement processes rather than species loss. Consequently, conservation efforts in human-driven drylands should prioritise the protection of ecologically distinct riparian habitats as ecological corridors that sustain native diversity and its essential contributions to people. This work contributes to the still-limited understanding of biodiversity patterns in human-driven drylands, which are projected to face accelerating transformation.

Source: Cambridge Prisms Drylands

DOI: 10.1017/dry.2026.10047

Authors: Joaquin Asad, Solana Tabeni

Institutions: Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, Centro Científico Tecnológico - Mendoza, Instituto Argentino de Investigaciones de las Zonas Aridas

Language: English

Topic: Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies

Subfield: Nature and Landscape Conservation

Field: Environmental Science

Domain: Physical Sciences

SDGs: Life on land, Sustainable cities and communities

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $3,893