| Budget Amount *help |
¥10,760,000 (Direct Cost: ¥9,800,000、Indirect Cost: ¥960,000)
Fiscal Year 2007: ¥4,160,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,200,000、Indirect Cost: ¥960,000)
Fiscal Year 2006: ¥3,100,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,100,000)
Fiscal Year 2005: ¥3,500,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,500,000)
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| Research Abstract |
From the transect survey of butterflies for three years, it was found that there were butterfly diversity and rarity hotspots in semi-natural grassland habitats. That is, the importance of the semi-natural habitats for conservation of butterfly diversity and its Red Listed species was clarified. As a result, we surveyed the maintenance system of plant communities in the semi-natural grassland habitats.
First, we found that this grassland habitat composed of two types of plant communities either with relatively tall grass or with short grass. While, the nectar plants of adult butterflies were more distributed in short grass communities than in tall ones. Second, we examined the relationships of the distribution patterns of the two types of grass communities with the disturbances of trampling by wildlife. We found that the short and tall grass communities were closely related with relatively high and law disturbances by wildlife, respectively. From these results, it was suggested that the
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plant species diversity and spatial distribution patterns of short grass are maintained by the spatial heterogeneous frequency of disturbances by wildlife. Consequently, disturbances by wildlife seem to be one of the important factors for maintaining the plant species diversity in semi-natural grassland habitats, and it is considered that high plant diversity is able to be maintained due to disturbances by wildlife without human related management.
In addition, we conducted land coating classification and landscape discrimination by sight in the semi-natural grassland habitats based on the data of satellite images taken during the period from the years 1995 to 2007. In the classification based on the LANDSAT satellite images with the ground resolution of 30 m, we discriminated grassland, evergreen forest, and deciduous forest in the habitats using only the satellite images taken in fallen leaf period, or using mixed satellite images taken in both growing and fallen leaf periods. However, we did not discriminate broadleaf forest and deciduous conifer forest such as Larix kaempferi from deciduous forest. Thus, we noticed that the mixed approach using satellite images and the data already existed is needed. On the other hand, it was suggested that tree distributions in the grassland habitats can be identified using the satellite images with high ground resolution of more than 10 m. Thus, to monitor the invasion of trees to the grassland habitats, the use of satellite images with high ground resolution may be effective. Less
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