Phytophagous hoverflies (Diptera: Syrphidae) as indicators of changing landscapes

Popov, Snežana; Miličić, Marija; Diti, Irene; Marko, Oskar; Sommaggio, Daniele; Markov, Zlata; Vujić, Ante

doi:10.1556/168.2017.18.3.7

Cited by 21 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…Some studies have reported that abundance of some groups falls with habitat simplification 48 , while in other groups abundance increases 49 which was also recorded in our study. The sensitivity of many of these species to environmental conditions has led to several groups being recognised as bioindicators of conditions in agricultural systems, native ecosystem degradation and ecological restoration [50][51][52][53] . These studies, along with others in traditional silvopastoral systems 54 highlight the importance of promoting these systems for livestock farming allied with biodiversity conservation and conservation of ecosystem services, though care must be taken, since the effects can depend on the design of the system and tree species chosen 55 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Differences in the insect fauna associated to a monocultural pasture and a silvopasture in Southeastern Brazil

Paiva

Auad²,

Veríssimo

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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A major challenge for global agriculture is the reduction of the environmental impacts caused by meat and dairy production, and the conversion of monocultural pastures to silvopastoral systems has emerged as an important ally in this process. In order to understand the effects of this conversion we analysed 4 years of sampling of the insect fauna from a conventional monocultural pasture and a silvopastoral system in Minas Gerais, Brazil. We aimed to determine whether the changes caused by the conversion affected the abundance, richness and diversity of the insect orders found in the two systems. Total abundance, richness and diversity did not differ between the two systems, but we detected a significant difference in community composition. Several insect orders showed differences in either abundance, richness or diversity between the two systems, and several families of Hymenoptera, which contains pollinators and natural enemies, showed important increases in the silvopasture. Conversion of monocultural pastures to silvopastures can have important consequences on insect fauna involved in essential ecosystem functions, and the implementation of silvopastures at larger scales has the potential to benefit biodiversity conservation and ecosystem service provision at the landscape scale. Bovine livestock is one of the most important sectors of Brazilian agribusiness, and consequently of Brazil's national economy 1. Over 80% of the herd depends on pastures as its major source of food. Pastures are a practical and economically efficient form of producing and offering food to cattle, since they are resistant to fluctuations in grain prices, guaranteeing relatively low costs of production 2,3. An important characteristic of the dynamics of Brazilian pastures has been the substitution of native pastures, composed of native grassland ecosystems in the Cerrado and Pampas, with pastures sown with exotic grass species, especially from the genus Brachiaria, which currently constitute over 50% Brazilian pastures 2. Intensive management of agricultural ecosystems and inappropriate pasture management, such as a lack of nutrient addition, result in the simplification of biological communities, and are the main cause of pasture degradation 4,5. In the search for production systems that minimise the effects of land degradation and increase the profit obtained by farmers, agroforests have emerged as an important alternative 6. Agroforests are increasingly used in Latin America to enhance biodiversity and the provision of ecosystem services. The adoption of agroforests in pastures, in the form of silvopastoral systems, creates an environment that buffers temperature extremes and is more comfortable for the animals, reduces erosion from runoff and wind and increases soil biomass, thus contributing to nutrient cycling 7. Furthermore, combining pastures with trees creates a diversity of microclimates that increases insect diversity 8. The effect of conversion to silvopastoral systems on specific insect groups has been studied previously 9...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Differences in the insect fauna associated to a monocultural pasture and a silvopasture in Southeastern Brazil

Paiva

Auad²,

Veríssimo

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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“…Recently, Jovičić et al (2017) showed that landscape structure and land use influence species compositions of two large phytophagous hoverflies genera (Merodon Meigen, 1803 and Cheilosia Meigen, 1822) differently in South-Eastern Europe [32]. Moreover, a study assessing the habitat quality in relation to decreased species richness of the same two genera in Serbia over a 25-year period [33] using CORINE land cover maps revealed that landscape structural changes, specifically in aggregation, isolation/connectivity, and landscape diversity, were significantly correlated with species richness loss. However, the UAV classified land cover map provides much greater precision and more details than CORINE (CLC), which greatly contribute to obtaining more accurate results and a more realistic picture of species richness in studied ecosystems.…”

Section: Potential and Recent Hoverfly Species Richness In Relation To Habitat Condition Assessmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Regarding the pollinators referred to in this study, hoverflies are the most biologically diverse families of Diptera [28], and the most important pollinators besides bees [28][29][30]. As bioindicators of the ecosystem's condition [29], hoverflies serve as valuable model organisms in studies on both climate change and the change in landscape structure and land use [26][27][28][31][32][33]. Hoverflies occupy a wide variety of habitats, aside from extreme conditions, such as dry areas and frozen landscapes [29,30,34].…”

Section: Introduction 1general Overview and Objectives Of The Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

UAV-Based Land Cover Classification for Hoverfly (Diptera: Syrphidae) Habitat Condition Assessment: A Case Study on Mt. Stara Planina (Serbia)

et al. 2021

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Habitat degradation, mostly caused by human impact, is one of the key drivers of biodiversity loss. This is a global problem, causing a decline in the number of pollinators, such as hoverflies. In the process of digitalizing ecological studies in Serbia, remote-sensing-based land cover classification has become a key component for both current and future research. Object-based land cover classification, using machine learning algorithms of very high resolution (VHR) imagery acquired by an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) was carried out in three different study sites on Mt. Stara Planina, Eastern Serbia. UAV land cover classified maps with seven land cover classes (trees, shrubs, meadows, road, water, agricultural land, and forest patches) were studied. Moreover, three different classification algorithms—support vector machine (SVM), random forest (RF), and k-NN (k-nearest neighbors)—were compared. This study shows that the random forest classifier performs better with respect to the other classifiers in all three study sites, with overall accuracy values ranging from 0.87 to 0.96. The overall results are robust to changes in labeling ground truth subsets. The obtained UAV land cover classified maps were compared with the Map of the Natural Vegetation of Europe (EPNV) and used to quantify habitat degradation and assess hoverfly species richness. It was concluded that the percentage of habitat degradation is primarily caused by anthropogenic pressure, thus affecting the richness of hoverfly species in the study sites. In order to enable research reproducibility, the datasets used in this study are made available in a public repository.

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“…Species pools for each defined vegetation type were compiled separately based on expert opinion and information from the StN database. The database compiles information about distribution and habitat preferences for European hoverfly species and has been successfully used for habitat evaluations (Speight & Castella, 2001;Sommaggio & Burgio, 2014;Popov et al, 2017).…”

Section: Estimation Of Dark Diversitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Come to the dark side! The role of functional traits in shaping dark diversity patterns of south‐eastern European hoverflies

Miličić

Popov

Vujić

et al. 2019

Ecological Entomology

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1. Dark diversity represents the set of species that can potentially inhabit a given area under particular ecological conditions, but are currently ‘missing’ from a site. This concept allows characterisation of the mechanisms determining why species are sometimes absent from an area that seems ecologically suitable for them. 2. The aim of this study was to determine the dark diversity of hoverflies in south‐eastern Europe and to discuss the role of different functional traits that might increase the likelihood of species contributing to dark diversity. Based on expert opinion, the Syrph the Net database and known occurrences of species, the study estimated species pools, and observed and dark diversities within each of 11 defined vegetation types for 564 hoverfly species registered in south‐eastern Europe. To detect the most important functional traits contributing to species being in dark diversity across different vegetation types, a random forest algorithm and respective statistics for variable importance were used. 3. The highest dark diversity was found for southwest Balkan sub‐Mediterranean mixed oak forest type, whereas the lowest was in Mediterranean mixed forest type. Three larval feeding modes (saproxylic, and phytophagous on bulbs or roots) were found to be most important for determining the probability of a species contributing to hoverfly dark diversity, based on univariate correlations and random forest analysis. 4. This study shows that studying dark diversity might provide important insights into what drives community assembly in south‐eastern European hoverflies, especially its missing components, and contributes to more precise conservation prioritisation of both hoverfly species and their habitats.

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Phytophagous hoverflies (Diptera: Syrphidae) as indicators of changing landscapes

Cited by 21 publications

References 29 publications

Differences in the insect fauna associated to a monocultural pasture and a silvopasture in Southeastern Brazil

Differences in the insect fauna associated to a monocultural pasture and a silvopasture in Southeastern Brazil

UAV-Based Land Cover Classification for Hoverfly (Diptera: Syrphidae) Habitat Condition Assessment: A Case Study on Mt. Stara Planina (Serbia)

Come to the dark side! The role of functional traits in shaping dark diversity patterns of south‐eastern European hoverflies

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