Extreme land-cover and biodiversity change as an outcome of land abandonment on a Mediterranean island (eastern Adriatic)

AbstractUnderstanding land abandonment and the resulting changes in land cover provides data for suitable reaction to habitat and species losses this process brings. This study aimed to define land-cover types and their biodiversity, record spatio-temporal changes and detect the trajectories and magnitude of these changes. The study was conducted on the island of Molat in the eastern Adriatic Sea. Land cover was defined for different years (1910, 1959, 1986, 2006) using remote sensing and recent vegetation sampling. The obtained land-cover maps were used for spatio-temporal analysis of land-cover change. Open vegetation units of rocky grassland, mesophilous grasslands and farm land dominated in 1910, covering 90% of the island. The observed changes occurred in trajectories through semi-open towards closed vegetation. In 2006, closed vegetation dominated, covering approximately 70% of the island area. The overall land-cover change was extreme, occurring over 90% of the island surface. Biodiversity analysis...