Relationships between earthworm populations, grassland management and badger densities in County Kilkenny, IrelandThe 7th international symposium on earthworm ecology · Cardiff · Wales · 2002

Muldowney, John; Curry, James; O’Keeffe, James; Schmidt, Olaf

doi:10.1016/s0031-4056(04)70289-9

Cited by 5 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…Given that badgers in this region [46] , [47] , [48] , [49] , [82] , as well as in others (e.g., [83] , [58] ), favour earthworm prey (see above), and given that earthworms surface and become most available to predators under mild, moist microclimatic conditions [57] , [84] , [58] , this syllogism leads us to strong inference that activity relates in major part to foraging success. Badgers with higher BCI prove freer to obviate the risk of net-negative energy returns under less optimal conditions by reducing their nightly activity levels.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Climate and the Individual: Inter-Annual Variation in the Autumnal Activity of the European Badger (Meles meles)

et al. 2014

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We establish intra-individual and inter-annual variability in European badger (Meles meles) autumnal nightly activity in relation to fine-scale climatic variables, using tri-axial accelerometry. This contributes further to understanding of causality in the established interaction between weather conditions and population dynamics in this species. Modelling found that measures of daylight, rain/humidity, and soil temperature were the most supported predictors of ACTIVITY, in both years studied. In 2010, the drier year, the most supported model included the SOLAR*RH interaction, RAIN, and30cmTEMP (w = 0.557), while in 2012, a wetter year, the most supported model included the SOLAR*RH interaction, and the RAIN*10cmTEMP (w = 0.999). ACTIVITY also differed significantly between individuals. In the 2012 autumn study period, badgers with the longest per noctem activity subsequently exhibited higher Body Condition Indices (BCI) when recaptured. In contrast, under drier 2010 conditions, badgers in good BCI engaged in less per noctem activity, while badgers with poor BCI were the most active. When compared on the same calendar dates, to control for night length, duration of mean badger nightly activity was longer (9.5 hrs ±3.3 SE) in 2010 than in 2012 (8.3 hrs ±1.9 SE). In the wetter year, increasing nightly activity was associated with net-positive energetic gains (from BCI), likely due to better foraging conditions. In a drier year, with greater potential for net-negative energy returns, individual nutritional state proved crucial in modifying activity regimes; thus we emphasise how a ‘one size fits all’ approach should not be applied to ecological responses.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The European badger provides a particularly good model for studying the effects of weather, because of its sensitivity to climatic conditions ( [45] , [20] , [44] , [13] ) and its trophic specialism, favouring earthworms, Lumbricus terrestris , in lowland Britain and Ireland [46] , [47] , [48] , [49] .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate and the Individual: Inter-Annual Variation in the Autumnal Activity of the European Badger (Meles meles)

et al. 2014

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“…Because of their vertical burrowing behavior, anecic earthworms can benefit from manure input at the soil surface, while their deep vertical burrows protect them from trampling by cattle (Schon et al, 2012). This may explain the observed increase in anecic earthworm biomass associated with grazing, as reported from grassland systems (Muldowney et al, 2003;. This has implications for ecosystem functioning as anecic earthworms vertically transport nutrients and organic material (Don et al, 2008) and increase nitrogen mineralization (Van Groenigen et al, 2014).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Long‐term cattle grazing shifts the ecological state of forest soils

Proesmans

Andrews

Gray

et al. 2022

Ecology and Evolution

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Cattle grazing profoundly affects abiotic and biotic characteristics of ecosystems. While most research has been performed on grasslands, the effect of large managed ungulates on forest ecosystems has largely been neglected. Compared to a baseline seminatural state, we investigated how long‐term cattle grazing of birch forest patches affected the abiotic state and the ecological community (microbes and invertebrates) of the soil subsystem. Grazing strongly modified the soil abiotic environment by increasing phosphorus content, pH, and bulk density, while reducing the C:N ratio. The reduced C:N ratio was strongly associated with a lower microbial biomass, mainly caused by a reduction of fungal biomass. This was linked to a decrease in fungivorous nematode abundance and the nematode channel index, indicating a relative uplift in the importance of the bacterial energy‐channel in the nematode assemblages. Cattle grazing highly modified invertebrate community composition producing distinct assemblages from the seminatural situation. Richness and abundance of microarthropods was consistently reduced by grazing (excepting collembolan richness) and grazing‐associated changes in soil pH, Olsen P, and reduced soil pore volume (bulk density) limiting niche space and refuge from physical disturbance. Anecic earthworm species predominated in grazed patches, but were absent from ungrazed forest, and may benefit from manure inputs, while their deep vertical burrowing behavior protects them from physical disturbance. Perturbation of birch forest habitat by long‐term ungulate grazing profoundly modified soil biodiversity, either directly through increased physical disturbance and manure input or indirectly by modifying soil abiotic conditions. Comparative analyses revealed the ecosystem engineering potential of large ungulate grazers in forest systems through major shifts in the composition and structure of microbial and invertebrate assemblages, including the potential for reduced energy flow through the fungal decomposition pathway. The precise consequences for species trophic interactions and biodiversity–ecosystem function relationships remain to be established, however.

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“…). Across much of their range, European badgers exhibit trophic specialization towards earthworms (Lumbricus terrestris ) (Kruuk & Parish, ; Johnson et al ., ; Muldowney et al ., ), which only surface under specific microclimatic conditions (Jiménez & Decaëns, ; Curry, ). Weather conditions, and especially resultant soil conditions, are therefore crucial for the distribution and availability of earthworms (Macdonald, ; Kowalczyk et al ., ), with direct affects on badger nutritional status (Macdonald & Newman, ; Macdonald et al ., ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Avoiding verisimilitude when modelling ecological responses to climate change: the influence of weather conditions on trapping efficiency in European badgers (Meles meles)

Noonan

Rahman

Newman

et al. 2015

Global Change Biology

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The signal for climate change effects can be abstruse; consequently, interpretations of evidence must avoid verisimilitude, or else misattribution of causality could compromise policy decisions. Examining climatic effects on wild animal population dynamics requires ability to trap, observe or photograph and to recapture study individuals consistently. In this regard, we use 19 years of data (1994-2012), detailing the life histories on 1179 individual European badgers over 3288 (re-) trapping events, to test whether trapping efficiency was associated with season, weather variables (both contemporaneous and time lagged), body-condition index (BCI) and trapping efficiency (TE). PCA factor loadings demonstrated that TE was affected significantly by temperature and precipitation, as well as time lags in these variables. From multi-model inference, BCI was the principal driver of TE, where badgers in good condition were less likely to be trapped. Our analyses exposed that this was enacted mechanistically via weather variables driving BCI, affecting TE. Notably, the very conditions that militated for poor trapping success have been associated with actual survival and population abundance benefits in badgers. Using these findings to parameterize simulations, projecting best-/worst-case scenario weather conditions and BCI resulted in 8.6% ± 4.9 SD difference in seasonal TE, leading to a potential 55.0% population abundance under-estimation under the worst-case scenario; 38.6% over-estimation under the best case. Interestingly, simulations revealed that while any single trapping session might prove misrepresentative of the true population abundance, due to weather effects, prolonging capture-mark-recapture studies under sub-optimal conditions decreased the accuracy of population estimates significantly. We also use these projection scenarios to explore how weather could impact government-led trapping of badgers in the UK, in relation to TB management. We conclude that population monitoring must be calibrated against the likelihood that weather conditions could be altering trap success directly, and therefore biasing model design.

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Relationships between earthworm populations, grassland management and badger densities in County Kilkenny, IrelandThe 7th international symposium on earthworm ecology · Cardiff · Wales · 2002

Cited by 5 publications

References 13 publications

Climate and the Individual: Inter-Annual Variation in the Autumnal Activity of the European Badger (Meles meles)

Climate and the Individual: Inter-Annual Variation in the Autumnal Activity of the European Badger (Meles meles)

Long‐term cattle grazing shifts the ecological state of forest soils

Avoiding verisimilitude when modelling ecological responses to climate change: the influence of weather conditions on trapping efficiency in European badgers (Meles meles)

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