Patterns in the horizontal structure of litter invertebrate communities in windbreak plantations in the steppe zone of the Ukraine

Abstract

The article analyses the patterns in the horizontal structure of litter invertebrate communities in windbreak plantations in the Steppe zone of the Ukraine. The number of invertebrate species shows statistically insignificant changes depending on the extent of the litter horizon development. With an increase in litter mass from 300 to 900 g/m2 the number of invertebrate species increases. An increase in the total number of macrofauna is observed in areas having a minimum and maximum thickness of the litter layer. Maximum values in the Shannon diversity index were observed in areas with sparse litter (50–150 g/m2). An observed increase in the variety of macrofauna species were seen where there was sparse grass cover in windbreak planted areas. The total number of litter invertebrate individuals related to the percentage of projective cover of herbaceous plants shows a significant increase in plots with 20–28% cover, though this factor does not affect the number of Aranei, Carabidae, and Staphylinidae. There is a decrease in the number of litter invertebrate species in areas with higher numbers of Lasius platythorax Seifert, 1991, while there is an insignificant change in the overall numbers of macrofauna. The abundance of Myrmica scabrinodis Nylander, 1846 does not show a significant influence on the number of litter macrofauna species. The minimum values of the Shannon biodiversity index for macrofauna were registered in plots with maximum numbers of M. scabrinodis. With an increase in the abundance of ants, the abundance of litter saprophages and phytophages decreases. There are also significant changes in the dominance structure of other taxonomic groups. Biotic factors have greater significance for the horizontal structure of litter macrofauna of steppe plantations than abiotic factors.

Structure of litter macrofauna communities in poplar plantations in an urban ecosystem in Ukraine

“…Many regions of Central and Eastern Ukraine are located in a zone of ecological impoverishment. A large part of this territory is affected by the intensive influence of agriculture, coal mining and the metallurgical industry (Faly and Brygadyrenko, 2014;Kul'bachko et al, 2015). Plantation forests and shelterbelts form a major part of South Ukraine's forest vegetation.…”

“…In urban forest plantations, a specific community composition develops which is very different from those of natural forest ecosystems (Moroz et al, 2011). In general, the species composition of urban landscapes is impoverished, being formed from ubiquitous species that are not specia-lized in their feeding and habitat requirements (Faly and Brygadyrenko, 2014). Many litter invertebrates react to even insignificant negative changes in their habitat by decreasing in number (Cameron and Leather, 2012).…”

Possibility of identifying plant components of the diet of Harpalus rufipes (Coleoptera, Carabidae) by visual evaluation

“…In the conditions of steppe zones, beetles are common in forest plantations and natural forests of different types Brygadyrenko ( , 2015. Consuming seeds of different plant species and invertebrates of different species (Monzo et al, 2011;Reshetniak and Brygadyrenko, 2013), they are able to survive through unfavorable periods of droughts, when they concentrate on the edges of grain crop fields and limit the seed yield both for cultivated cereals and weeds in the fields (Faly and Brygadyrenko, 2014;Faly et al, 2017). The factors which cause the imagoes of this species to migrate (including mass migrations) have been insufficiently studied (Midtgaard, 1999), but certainly apart from beetles' activity related to mating and oviposition in the most favorable conditions, the main factor is searching for a sufficient amount of seeds of optimum quality and of optimum species composition, including in agrocoenoses (Zhang et al, 1997;Hartke et al, 1998;Porhajašova et al, 2009;Bohan et al, 2011;Harrison and Gallandt, 2012).…”

Coenomorphs as phytometers of biotopes

“…При этом разными авторами используются разные экологические шкалы: Раменского (Avetov et al, 2014), Цыганова (Kleshcheva, 2007), Элленберга Vrška, 2007, 2008;Cachovanová et al, 2012;Marinšek et al, 2015), а также их комплекс (Shirokikh and Martynenko, 2009). Использование фитоиндикационных шкал позволяет оценивать биотопы в их ретроспективе с точки зрения динамики отдельных факторов (Brygadyrenko, 2006(Brygadyrenko, , 2014Priputina et al, 2015), а также пространственное распределение биотопов по комплексу экологических факторов (Faly and Brygadyrenko, 2014;Fischer et al, 2014), группам факторов (Mellert and Ewald, 2014) и по отдельным экологическим факторам (например, по реакции почвенного раствора, Häring et al (2014)).…”