Land-use legacy and tree age in continuous woodlands: weak effects on overall ground beetle assemblages, but strong effects on two threatened species

Hülsmann, Marietta; Boutaud, Estève; Buse, Jörn; Schuldt, Andreas; Aßmann, Thorsten

doi:10.1007/s10841-019-00156-8

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 52 publications

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“…Variations in carabid composition and diversity between mature and young forest stands have previously been shown (e.g., Fountain-Jones et al, 2015), as well as in function of the forest management (e.g., Barkley et al, 2016;Sroka & Finch, 2006). Surprisingly, the role of historical continuity (i.e., forest patch age) has been largely neglected so far (but see Assmann, 1999;Desender et al, 2005;Hülsmann et al, 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multiscale drivers of carabid beetle (Coleoptera: Carabidae) assemblages in small European woodlands

Marrec

Roux

Martin

et al. 2020

Global Ecol. Biogeogr.

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Aim The spatio‐temporal connectivity of forest patches in lowland agricultural landscapes and their age matter to explain current biodiversity patterns across regional as well as biogeographical extents, to the point that their effect exceeds the one of macroclimate for plant diversity in the understorey of temperate forests. Whether this remains true for other taxonomic groups is still largely unknown. Yet, this relative influence has important consequences for ecosystem functioning and the delivery of ecosystem services. Focusing on carabid beetle assemblages, we assessed the relative importance of macroclimatic, landscape and patch attributes in driving local species richness (α‐diversity) and species dissimilarity between patches (β‐diversity). Location Deciduous forest patches in seven regions along a 2,100‐km‐long latitudinal gradient across the European temperate forest biome, from southern France to central Sweden. Methods We sampled 221 forest patches in two 5‐km × 5‐km landscape windows with contrasting management intensities. Carabid beetles were classified into four habitat‐preference guilds: forest‐specialist, forest‐generalist, eurytopic and open‐habitat species. We quantified the multi‐level environmental influence using mixed‐effects models and variation partitioning analysis. Results We found that both α‐ and β‐diversity were primarily determined by macroclimate, acting as a large‐scale ecological filter on carabid assemblages among regions. Forest‐patch conditions, including biotic and abiotic heterogeneity as well as patch age (but not patch size), increased α‐diversity of forest species. Landscape management intensity weakly influenced α‐diversity of forest species, but increased the number of non‐forest species in forest patches. Beta diversity of non‐forest species increased with patch heterogeneity and decreased with landscape management intensity. Main conclusions Our results highlight the leading role of broad macroclimatic gradients over local and landscape factors in determining the composition of local carabid communities, thereby shedding light on macroecological patterns of arthropod assemblages. This study emphasizes the urgent need for preserving ancient forest patches embedded in agricultural landscapes, even the small and weakly connected ones.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multiscale drivers of carabid beetle (Coleoptera: Carabidae) assemblages in small European woodlands

Marrec

Roux

Martin

et al. 2020

Global Ecol. Biogeogr.

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“…Given the fact, that our study took place in a subtropical hotspot of vascular plant diversity, we expected higher numbers of ground beetles. For example, studies using the same sampling approach in Central European forests have reported 60 times more ground beetle specimens and 90 times more ground beetle biomass ( Homburg et al 2019 ; Hülsmann et al 2019 ). Similarly, the number of species from temperate forests is higher ( Nolte et al 2017 ; Marrec et al 2021 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

What shapes ground beetle assemblages in a tree species-rich subtropical forest?

Zumstein

Bruelheide

Fichtner

et al. 2021

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As woody plants provide much of the trophic basis for food webs in forests their species richness, but also stand age and numerous further variables such as vegetation structure, soil properties and elevation can shape assemblages of ground beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae). However, the combined impact of these numerous variables on ground beetle diversity and community structure has rarely been studied simultaneously. Therefore, ground beetles were studied in 27 plots in a highly diverse and structurally heterogeneous subtropical forest ecosystem, the Gutianshan National Park (southeast China) using pitfall traps and flight interception traps. Both trapping methods collected partly overlapping species spectra. The arboreal fauna was dominated by lebiines and to a smaller extent by tiger beetles and platynines; the epigeic fauna comprised mostly representatives of the genus Carabus and numerous tribes, especially anisodactylines, pterostichines, and sphodrines. Ground beetle species richness, abundance, and biomass of the pitfall trap catches were analyzed with generalized linear mixed models (GLMMs), fitted with seven environmental variables. Four of these variables influenced the ground beetle assemblages: Canopy cover, herb cover, pH-value of the topsoil and elevation. Contrary to our expectations, woody plant species richness and stand age did not significantly affect ground beetle assemblages. Thus, ground beetles seem to respond differently to environmental variables than ants and spiders, two other predominantly predatory arthropod groups that were studied on the same plots in our study area and which showed distinct relationships with woody plant richness. Our results highlight the need to study a wider range of taxa to achieve a better understanding of how environmental changes affect species assemblages and their functioning in forest ecosystems.

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“…Despite this they are often used outside their region or habitat of origin (e.g. Cárdenas and Hidalgo, 2007;Hülsmann et al, 2019;Hallmann et al, 2020). Sabo et al (2002) observed that the accuracy of size-weight models improves with increasing taxonomic specificity.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How to estimate carabid biomass?—an evaluation of size-weight models for ground beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae) and perspectives for further improvement

Weiss

Linde

2022

J Insect Conserv

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Biomass is an important metric for monitoring carabid populations and serves as an ecological indicator. Models that predict carabid weight based on body size represent a simple and straightforward method to estimate biomass and are therefore commonly used. However, such models are rarely evaluated against independent validation data. In this study, we evaluated the two widely used size-weight models by Szyszko (1983) and Booij et al. (1994) drawing on previously published independent data. Additionally, we developed and tested four new models to also evaluate the potential effect of taxonomic parameters; and compared model predictions with actual measurements of biomass using relative deviation graphs and observed versus predicted from regression. We show that the two models by Szyszko (1983) and Booij et al. (1994) contain systematic bias towards larger and smaller carabids, respectively, suggesting restricted applicability of such models. Additional taxonomic parameters improved weight predictions, indicating one possible solution to the issue of restricted applicability. We discuss further relevant limitations of size-weight models and their application and recommend a combined use of the models of Szyszko (1983) and Booij et al. (1994) for carabids ≥ 11.8 mm and < 11.8 mm, respectively.Implications for insect conservation: Size-weight models are a suitable and simple method to estimate the biomass of carabids and have great potential to be used in monitoring schemes, the investigation of long-term trends and ecological studies. It is, however, essential that researchers pay special attention to potential restrictions in their applicability and methodological limitations.

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Land-use legacy and tree age in continuous woodlands: weak effects on overall ground beetle assemblages, but strong effects on two threatened species

Cited by 5 publications

References 52 publications

Multiscale drivers of carabid beetle (Coleoptera: Carabidae) assemblages in small European woodlands

Multiscale drivers of carabid beetle (Coleoptera: Carabidae) assemblages in small European woodlands

What shapes ground beetle assemblages in a tree species-rich subtropical forest?

How to estimate carabid biomass?—an evaluation of size-weight models for ground beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae) and perspectives for further improvement

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