| 1. |
- Soliveres, Santiago, et al.
(författare)
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Biodiversity at multiple trophic levels is needed for ecosystem multifunctionality
- 2016
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Ingår i: Nature. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0028-0836 .- 1476-4687. ; 536:7617, s. 456-459
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Many experiments have shown that loss of biodiversity reduces the capacity of ecosystems to provide the multiple services on which humans depend. However, experiments necessarily simplify the complexity of natural ecosystems and will normally control for other important drivers of ecosystem functioning, such as the environment or land use. In addition, existing studies typically focus on the diversity of single trophic groups, neglecting the fact that biodiversity loss occurs across many taxa and that the functional effects of any trophic group may depend on the abundance and diversity of others. Here we report analysis of the relationships between the species richness and abundance of nine trophic groups, including 4,600 above- and below-ground taxa, and 14 ecosystem services and functions and with their simultaneous provision (or multifunctionality) in 150 grasslands. We show that high species richness in multiple trophic groups (multitrophic richness) had stronger positive effects on ecosystem services than richness in any individual trophic group; this includes plant species richness, the most widely used measure of biodiversity. On average, three trophic groups influenced each ecosystem service, with each trophic group influencing at least one service. Multitrophic richness was particularly beneficial for 'regulating' and 'cultural' services, and for multifunctionality, whereas a change in the total abundance of species or biomass in multiple trophic groups (the multitrophic abundance) positively affected supporting services. Multitrophic richness and abundance drove ecosystem functioning as strongly as abiotic conditions and land-use intensity, extending previous experimental results to real-world ecosystems. Primary producers, herbivorous insects and microbial decomposers seem to be particularly important drivers of ecosystem functioning, as shown by the strong and frequent positive associations of their richness or abundance with multiple ecosystem services. Our results show that multitrophic richness and abundance support ecosystem functioning, and demonstrate that a focus on single groups has led to researchers to greatly underestimate the functional importance of biodiversity.
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| 2. |
- Soliveres, Santiago, et al.
(författare)
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Locally rare species influence grassland ecosystem multifunctionality
- 2016
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Ingår i: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. - : The Royal Society. - 0962-8436 .- 1471-2970. ; 371:1694
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Species diversity promotes the delivery of multiple ecosystem functions (multifunctionality). However, the relative functional importance of rare and common species in driving the biodiversity-multifunctionality relationship remains unknown. We studied the relationship between the diversity of rare and common species (according to their local abundances and across nine different trophic groups), and multifunctionality indices derived from 14 ecosystem functions on 150 grasslands across a land-use intensity (LUI) gradient. The diversity of above-and below-ground rare species had opposite effects, with rare above-ground species being associated with high levels of multifunctionality, probably because their effects on different functions did not trade off against each other. Conversely, common species were only related to average, not high, levels of multifunctionality, and their functional effects declined with LUI. Apart from the community-level effects of diversity, we found significant positive associations between the abundance of individual species and multifunctionality in 6% of the species tested. Species-specific functional effects were best predicted by their response to LUI: species that declined in abundance with land use intensification were those associated with higher levels of multifunctionality. Our results highlight the importance of rare species for ecosystem multifunctionality and help guiding future conservation priorities.
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| 3. |
- Arvidsson, Fredrik, et al.
(författare)
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Geographic location, not forest type, affects the diversity of spider communities sampled with malaise traps in Sweden
- 2016
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Ingår i: Annales Zoologici Fennici. - : Finnish Zoological and Botanical Publishing Board. - 0003-455X .- 1797-2450 .- 0003-3847. ; 53:3-4, s. 215-227
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The latitudinal diversity gradient predicts higher species richness at lower latitudes. Here, we utilize the data from a long-term monitoring with malaise traps to analyse if spider communities in Sweden are affected by geographic gradients and if these effects hold independent of forest type. The species richness and the effective number of species in spider communities were not significantly related to the latitudinal gradient. The effective number of species and the taxonomic distinctness of spider communities were related to longitude, with a higher number, but fewer related species in western parts of Sweden. The species and family composition were significantly related to latitude independent of forest type, with a dominance of Linyphiidae individuals and species in the north. Our study demonstrates the suitability of malaise trap sampling to contribute to a better understanding of local spider communities, as several rare and locally new species were recorded in this study.
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| 4. |
- Arvidsson, Fredrik, et al.
(författare)
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Geographic location, not forest type, affects the diversity of spider communities sampled with malaise traps in Sweden
- 2016
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Ingår i: Annales Zoologici Fennici. - : Finnish Zoological and Botanical Publishing Board. - 0003-455X .- 1797-2450 .- 0003-3847. ; 53:3-4, s. 215-227
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The latitudinal diversity gradient predicts higher species richness at lower latitudes. Here, we utilize the data from a long-term monitoring with malaise traps to analyse if spider communities in Sweden are affected by geographic gradients and if these effects hold independent of forest type. The species richness and the effective number of species in spider communities were not significantly related to the latitudinal gradient. The effective number of species and the taxonomic distinctness of spider communities were related to longitude, with a higher number, but fewer related species in western parts of Sweden. The species and family composition were significantly related to latitude independent of forest type, with a dominance of Linyphiidae individuals and species in the north. Our study demonstrates the suitability of malaise trap sampling to contribute to a better understanding of local spider communities, as several rare and locally new species were recorded in this study.
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| 5. |
- Berger, Josef S., et al.
(författare)
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Landscape configuration affects herbivore–parasitoid communities in oilseed rape
- 2018
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Ingår i: Journal of Pest Science. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1612-4758 .- 1612-4766. ; 91:3, s. 1093-1105
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- It is crucial to consider the effects of large-scale drivers on species presences and ecological interactions to understand what structures communities. In our study, we investigated how the species composition and the potential interaction networks of herbivore and parasitoid communities in oilseed rape fields are affected by agricultural landscape characteristics. Insect communities of 26 winter oilseed rape fields in southern Sweden were captured in water traps over a continuous time span of 30 ± 2 days. In total, 31% of the variation in the composition of herbivore host communities was explained by a combination of the surrounding oilseed rape area in the study year and the previous year and distance to the nearest forest. The oilseed rape area in the study year and distance to forest also explained 14% of the variation in the composition of parasitoid communities. Distance to the nearest forest together with the area of oilseed rape in the previous year explained 45% of the variation in asymmetry of interaction webs. These results indicate that several measures of landscape configuration are important both for the composition of host and parasitoid communities and also for the structure of interaction networks. Our results support the view that it is an appropriate strategy to cultivate oilseed rape in landscapes that are far away from forests, in order to minimize recolonization by pest species and at the same time to attract parasitoid species from the open landscape.
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| 6. |
- Birkhofer, Klaus, et al.
(författare)
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A framework to identify indicator species for ecosystem services in agricultural landscapes
- 2018
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Ingår i: Ecological Indicators. - : Elsevier BV. - 1470-160X .- 1872-7034. ; 91, s. 278-286
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Improving our understanding of the relationships between biodiversity and the delivery of ecosystem services is crucial for the development of sustainable agriculture. We introduce a novel framework that is based on the identification of indicator species for single or multiple ecosystem services across taxonomic groups based on indicator species analyses. We utilize multi-species community data (unlike previous single species approaches) without giving up information about the identity of species in our framework (unlike previous species richness approaches). We compiled a comprehensive community dataset including abundances of 683 invertebrate, vertebrate and plant species to identify indicator species that were either positively or negatively related to biological control, diversity of red-listed species or crop yield in agricultural landscapes in southern Sweden. Our results demonstrate that some taxonomic groups include significantly higher percentages of indicator species for these ecosystem services. Spider communities for example included a higher percentage of significant positive indicator species for biological control than ground or rove beetle communities. Bundles of indicator species for the analysed ecosystem service potentials usually included species that could be linked to the respective ecosystem service based on their functional role in local communities. Several of these species are conspicuous enough to be monitored by trained amateurs and could be used in bundles that are either crucial for the provision of individual ecosystem services or indicate agricultural landscapes with high value for red-listed species or crop yields. The use of bundles of characteristic indicator species for the simultaneous assessment of ecosystem services may reduce the amount of labour, time and cost in future assessments. In addition, future analysis using our framework in other ecosystems or with other subsets of ecosystem services and taxonomic groups will improve our understanding of service-providing species in local communities. In any case, expert knowledge is needed to select species from the identified subsets of significant indicator species and these species should be validated by existing data or additional sampling prior to being used for ecosystem service monitoring.
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| 7. |
- Birkhofer, Klaus, et al.
(författare)
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Ecosystem services - current challenges and opportunities for ecological research
- 2015
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution. - : Frontiers Media SA. - 2296-701X. ; 2:12 January 2015
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- e concept of ecosystem services was originally developed to illustrate the benefits that natural ecosystems generate for society and to raise awareness for biodiversity and ecosystem conservation. In this article we identify major challenges and opportunities for ecologists involved in empirical or modeling ecosystem service research. The first challenge arises from the fact that the ecosystem service concept has not been generated in the context of managed systems. Ecologists need to identify the effect of anthropogenic interventions in order to propose practices to benefit service-providing organisms and associated services. The second challenge arises from the need to evaluate relationships between indicators of ecosystem services that are collected in ecological studies while accounting for uncertainties of ecological processes that underlie these services. We suggest basing the assessment of ecosystem services on the utilization of sets of indicators that cover aspects of service-providing units, ecosystem management and landscape modification. The third challenge arises from the limited understanding of the nature of relationships between services and a lack of a general statistical framework to address these links. To manage ecosystem service provisioning, ecologists need to establish whether services respond to a shared driver or if services are directly linked to each other. Finally, studies relating biodiversity to ecosystem services often focus on services at small spatial or short temporal scales, but research on the protection of services is often directed toward services providing benefits at large spatial scales. Ecological research needs to address a range of spatial and temporal scales to provide a multifaceted understanding of how nature promotes human well-being. Addressing these challenges in the future offers a unique opportunity for ecologists to act as promoters for the understanding about how to conserve benefits gained from nature.
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| 8. |
- Birkhofer, Klaus, et al.
(författare)
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Effects of Ground Cover Management on Biotic Communities, Ecosystem Services and Disservices in Organic Deciduous Fruit Orchards in South Africa
- 2019
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems. - : Frontiers Media SA. - 2571-581X. ; 3
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Organic orchards may have higher biodiversity and levels of ecosystem services compared to conventionally managed orchards. However, it is not well-understood how management decisions within organic orchards alter biotic communities and ecosystem services. The simultaneous provision of individual ecosystem services and mitigation of disservices is crucial for organic growers who cannot replace natural regulatory processes by artificial inputs. This study addresses one of the major constraints for organic fruit production in South Africa, namely the availability of strategies for pest control and nutrient management in soils. Partly due to these constraints, organic certification of deciduous fruits is very uncommon in South Africa and limited our selection of study plots. A field experiment on a single farm was established to study the impact of a treatment with dead organic mulch compared to controls on the composition of biotic communities, the simultaneous provision of ecosystem services, and the mitigation of disservices in five organic deciduous fruit orchards in the Western Cape province. Mulching did not significantly reduce weed cover or alter the taxonomic composition of weed communities, but affected soil organisms. Mulched subplots had significantly higher densities of Collembola and phytophagous nematodes and lower microbial activity and woodlice numbers. Independent of mulch treatment, both orchard type (conventional: apricot and organic: apricot, peach, plum, and quince) and weed cover had pronounced effects on the composition of biotic communities and ecosystem service and disservice potentials. The community composition of plants, microbes and web-building spiders differed significantly between organically and conventionally managed plots. The composition of communities and levels of ecosystem service and disservice potentials also differed significantly between organic orchards of different fruit type. Two potential pest groups (phytophagous nematodes and arthropods) were most abundant in peach subplots with high weed cover and tree age and least abundant in conventionally managed apricot plots. These results emphasize the crucial importance to consider weed-microbe-animal interactions when developing management practices in organic orchards. Management decisions in organic orchards hold the potential to affect biotic communities to the benefit of pest control and soil nutrient services, but can also result in unexpected detrimental effects on ecosystem services.
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| 9. |
- Birkhofer, Klaus, et al.
(författare)
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Environmental Impacts of Organic Farming
- 2016
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Ingår i: eLS. - : Wiley. - 9780470015902 ; , s. 1-7
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Organic agriculture is a production system that aims at sustaining healthy soils, ecosystems and people by prohibiting the application of synthetic pesticides and fertilisers in crop production and by emphasising animal welfare in livestock breeding. This article shows that organic agriculture is characterised by higher soil quality and reduced nutrient or pesticide leaching compared to nonorganic agriculture, but that positive effects on biological control services or emission of greenhouse gases are less evident. Yield gaps between organic and nonorganic agriculture are on average 20%, but vary between crops and regions. Given the environmental risks that are associated with intensive, nonorganic agriculture, farming practices should be modified to decrease risks. Organic agriculture can be a more environmentally friendly alternative, but individual farming practices need improvement to meet the demands of a growing human population. Further growth of the organic farming sector will contribute to reduce the negative environmental impact of agriculture.
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| 10. |
- Birkhofer, Klaus, et al.
(författare)
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Global metawebs of spider predation highlight consequences of land-use change for terrestrial predator–prey networks
- 2017
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Ingår i: Adaptive Food Webs : Stability and Transitions of Real and Model Ecosystems - Stability and Transitions of Real and Model Ecosystems. - : Cambridge University Press. - 9781316871867 - 9781107182110 ; , s. 193-213
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Land-Use Change and Terrestrial Predator–Prey Networks Land-use change, here defined as the conversion of one land-use type into another (e.g., forest to arable land), affects biodiversity and biotic interactions worldwide (Sala et al., 2000). Although there has been large regional variation in the extent of agricultural expansion and abandonment in Europe in the past 50 years (Rabbinge and van Diepen, 2000), there has been a general trend that forest has expanded at the expense of agricultural land (Kankaanpäa and Carter, 2004; Rounsevell et al., 2006). The patterns have been similar in North America the past decades (Smith et al., 2010). Globally, particularly in developing countries, the general pattern has instead been agricultural expansion (Smith et al., 2010), threatening forest ecosystems (DeFries et al., 2010; Lambin and Meyfroidt, 2011; but see Angelsen, 2010). In fact, models predict an increase of cropland between 10 and 25% up to 2050, mainly due to agricultural expansion in developing countries (Schmitz et al., 2014). Natural and semi-natural non-forest ecosystems are primarily threatened by a conversion to pasture land (Schmitz et al., 2014) or by cultivation with biofuels (Havlík et al., 2011). Climate change is an important additional driver of land-use conversion, as the range of crop species contract or expand (Olesen and Bindi, 2002) and as forests adapt to changing climatic conditions (Spittlehouse and Stewart, 2004). In the past, effects of land-use change were often exclusively assessed by their impact on species richness (Tilman et al., 2001). Today, it has increasingly become evident that we need metrics that capture additional features of biological communities to understand consequences of land-use change on ecosystem functions and the provision of ecosystem services (Tylianakis et al., 2007; Diehl et al., 2013). Trophic interactions that link species in food webs are important components that modulate functions provided by biological communities (Laliberté and Tylianakis, 2010; Tylianakis et al., 2010; Thompson et al., 2012). For example, the loss of large apex predators from an ecosystem due to anthropogenic disturbance may cascade through the food chain and lead to drastic effects on primary producers (Estes et al., 2011). Predator populations are often severely affected by anthropogenic disturbances (Attwood et al., 2008). Consequently, the conversion from one major land-use type into another may alter predator–prey interactions (Ives et al., 2005) and the provision of predator-mediated ecosystem services such as the control of agricultural pests (conservation biological control; Barbosa, 1998).
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