Long‐term fertilizer regimes have both direct and indirect effects on arthropod community composition and feeding guilds

Abstract

Vegetation species composition and structure are known to affect taxonomic composition and life‐history characteristics of arthropod communities. Soil conditions alter vegetation composition and structure, and thus, soils have indirect effects on arthropods. Whilst grassland management affects soil properties, and hence vegetation, the direct effects of soil on arthropod communities within the sward are less clear. We used a long‐term hay meadow experiment to assess both direct and indirect effects of various fertilizer regimes on arthropod community composition and feeding guilds. Arthropods were sampled via pitfall traps and sweep nets and then analysed using principal components and redundancy analyses (RDA) to determine relationships between soil properties, vegetation community, forage quality and arthropod community. Vegetation community composition, measured by the first vegetation principal component, was used as a constraining variable in partial RDA, to estimate direct effects of soil on the arthropods. Variance partitioning quantified the relative roles of vegetation and soil on the arthropod community. Our results indicate that available soil nitrogen and carbon–nitrogen ratios are important determinants of arthropod community composition. Once the effects of the vegetation were removed, it was found the soil acidity and the available potassium altered arthropod community composition. Further research is required to determine the mechanisms by which these soil properties affect arthropod communities.

Vegetation richness, diversity, and structure influence arthropod communities of native and restored northern mixed‐prairies

“…Grassland management practices including grazing (Hoernemann et al 2001; Farrell et al 2015; Klink et al 2015; Goosey et al 2019), fire (Harper et al 2000; Kral et al 2017) and haying (Hoernemann et al 2001; Rosa García & Fraser 2019) also shape arthropod communities. While management was stopped prior to our data collection, there may be relict impacts at the belowground level that were not accounted for in our study, but influence the arthropod community (Evans & Sanderson 2018). It is possible results may differ in different years or at sites with different management history.…”

A 34-year survey under phosphorus decline and warming: Consequences on stoichiometry and functional trait composition of freshwater macroinvertebrate communities

“…Apart from toxic effects at rather high increase (Camargo et al, 2005), the effect of nutrient enrichment on consumer communities is mainly indirect, via changes in resource quality and quantity (Evans & Sanderson, 2018;Nessel et al, 2021). In contrast, warming affects J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f organisms also directly by increasing their metabolic activity and physiological rates thus leading to altered respiration (Hamburger and Dall, 1990), growth (Janssens et al, 2015;Pöckl, 1992;Sutcliffe et al, 1981) or development (Gillooly et al, 2002;Pöckl, 1992).…”

Local and landscape responses of biodiversity in calcareous grasslands

“…Additionally, long-lasting flow-on effects from the use of agrochemicals (Evans and Sanderson 2018;Melts et al 2018) and from atmospheric nitrogen deposition (Dupre et al 2010;Field et al 2014) put grassland species under pressure (Fischer and Stocklin 1997). Specialist species might be more affected than generalist species, as specialist species are in many cases mono-or oligophagous and therefore decline more dramatically than polyphagous species (Ernst et al 2017;Steffan-Dewenter and Tscharntke 2000;Wenzel et al 2006).…”