Artificial Refuges created for the endangered reptiles of Spain
About eleven years ago there was a mining accident at Aznalcóllar that contaminated part of the Doñana National Park in Spain; it caused major damage to the reptile habitat there. Now a team of Spanish researchers that have been studying the reptiles there since 20000, have shown that by setting up artificial refuges, that the disappearance of there natural homes had a serious impact on the lizard and snakes there.
Researchers from the University of Grenada and Barcelona started a study nine years ago of the reptiles in the Doñana ecological corridor. They found that the reptile there were “ very impoverished”, and that despite a clean up of the area the natural refuges and could only find one of the thirteen reptile species present there, the European common Gecko (Tarentola mauritanica).
The university teams created some artificial refuges some 120 groups of tree trunks on a 24 hectare site. They monitored the site and compared it with another site that was left alone for comparison.
The test area was found to recuperate from the one gecko species in 20000-20001, to six species in 2006.
“The results suggest that landscape rehabilitation programmes shouldn’t overlook the availability of refuges for wildlife, a vital resource for Mediterranean reptiles, and something that can be put into place using an system as inexpensive as waste tree trunks,” concludes the biologist
John
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