Life-history strategies as a tool to identify conservation constraints: A case-study on ants in chalk grasslands

Noordwijk, C. G. E. van; Boer, P. J. den.; Mabelis, A.A.; Verberk, Wilco C. E. P.; Siepel, H.

doi:10.1016/j.ecolind.2011.06.028

Cited by 17 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 48 publications

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“…In addition, the management regime seems to have been insufficient to create favorable habitat conditions for some characteristic species, particularly carabid beetles and weevils. Intensive autumn management in Dutch calcareous grasslands may cause particular obstacles for their larval stages, as was previously demonstrated for ants (van Noordwijk et al 2012a) and butterflies (van Noordwijk et al 2012b). …”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…More elaborate analyses, incorporating a wide range of traits and explicit trait interactions, e.g. through the use of lifehistory strategies, are likely to generate better insight (van Noordwijk et al 2012a;Verberk et al 2013;van Noordwijk 2014).…”

Section: Species Characteristicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, in our highly fragmented study system, dispersal ability is likely to play a role. Fragmentation has repeatedly been demonstrated to hamper restoration of plant communities (Ozinga et al 2005;Smits 2010), poorly dispersing beetles (Woodcock et al 2010b) and ants (van Noordwijk et al 2012a). This potentially explains why these groups did not increase in local and regional diversity in our study.…”

Section: Differences Between Taxonomic Groupsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Good and poor dispersal ability were defined respectively as presence or absence of long distance dispersal strategies (LDD) in plants and as presence or absence of individuals capable of active flight for carabid beetles, weevils and true bugs. For ants, dispersal ability was judged from their life history strategy (van Noordwijk et al 2012a), with species mainly founding new nests through social-parasitism or nest-splitting defined as poor dispersers. For spiders, dispersal ability was categorized based on behaviour traits, including ballooning.…”

Section: Data Collectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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17 years of grassland management leads to parallel local and regional biodiversity shifts among a wide range of taxonomic groups

Noordwijk

Baeten

Turin³

et al. 2016

Biodivers Conserv

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Conservation management is expected to increase local biodiversity, but uniform management may lead to biotic homogenization and diversity losses at the regional scale. We evaluated the effects of renewed grazing and cutting management carried out across a whole region, on the diversity of plants and seven arthropod groups. Changes in occurrence over 17 years of intensive calcareous grassland management were analysed at the species level, which gave insight into the exact species contributing to regional homogenization or differentiation. Reponses were compared between species differing in habitat affinity, dispersal ability, food specialisation and trophic level. Local species richness increased over the sampling period for true bugs and millipedes, while carabid beetles and weevils declined in local species richness. Species richness remained unchanged for plants, woodlice, ants and spiders. Regional diversity and compositional variation generally followed local patterns. Diversity shifts were only to a limited extent explained by species' habitat affinity, dispersal ability, trophic level and food specialisation. We conclude that implementation of relatively uniform conservation management across a region did not lead to uniform changes in local species composition. This is an encouraging result for conservation managers, as it shows that there is not necessarily a conflict of interest between local and regional conservation goals. Our study also demonstrates that shifts in diversity patterns differ markedly between taxonomic groups. Single traits provide only limited understanding of these differences. This highlights the need for a wide taxonomic scope when evaluating conservation management and demonstrates the need to understand the mechanisms underlying occurrence shifts.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Section: Species Characteristicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Differences Between Taxonomic Groupsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Data Collectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

17 years of grassland management leads to parallel local and regional biodiversity shifts among a wide range of taxonomic groups

Noordwijk

Baeten

Turin³

et al. 2016

Biodivers Conserv

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“…These responses were in some cases related to local environmental conditions, but did not explicitly relate species recovery to ecological processes, and/or morphological and physiological mechanisms. Functional traits are a reasonable tool in this respect (van Noordwijk et al 2012;Lewis et al 2014). They can either be useful to determine effects of plants on ecosystem functions (effect traits) or to understand the response of plants to environmental changes such as disturbances (response traits) (Lavorel & Garnier 2002).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Response of plant functional traits during the restoration of calcareous grasslands from forest stands

Piqueray

Ferroni

Delescaille

et al. 2015

Ecological Indicators

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In this survey, we studied the response of plant functional traits to calcareous grassland restoration in the Calestienne region, Southern Belgium (restoration protocol: forest clearcutting followed by grazing at all sites). We considered traits related to dispersal, establishment, and persistence that integrate the main challenges of plants to re-establish and survive in restored areas. Functional traits were compiled from databases and compared among annuals and biennials). During restorative management, clonal, epizoochorous and autumn germinating species were favored. Despite numerous other changes during this phase, many differences remained compared to reference grasslands. In particular, geophytes, mycorrhizal and evergreen species abundance were not approaching reference grassland values. The observed pattern helped to draw inferences on the possible mechanisms operating under vegetation recovery following restorative forest clear-cut and subsequent management were identified and described in this study. Results indicated grazing was an important factor, which increased epizoochorous species, and autumn germinating taxa that filled niches in vegetation opened by summer grazing animals. Finally, differences between old restoration and reference grasslands emphasized that management should focus on reduction in soil fertility, and geophyte rhizomatous grasses. Long-term monitoring is vital to assess if management plans are effective in the complete restoration of species functional trait assemblages.

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Indirect Effects of Browsing Herbivores in Savannas

Coetsee

Fornara

Veldtman

et al. 2019

Savanna Woody Plants and Large Herbivores

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Life-history strategies as a tool to identify conservation constraints: A case-study on ants in chalk grasslands

Cited by 17 publications

References 48 publications

17 years of grassland management leads to parallel local and regional biodiversity shifts among a wide range of taxonomic groups

17 years of grassland management leads to parallel local and regional biodiversity shifts among a wide range of taxonomic groups

Response of plant functional traits during the restoration of calcareous grasslands from forest stands

Indirect Effects of Browsing Herbivores in Savannas

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