Spider assemblage structure and functional diversity patterns of natural forest steppes and exotic forest plantations

Gallé, Róbert; Szabó, Ágota; Császár, Péter; Torma, Attila

doi:10.1016/j.foreco.2018.01.040

Cited by 29 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 57 publications

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“…However, there is a need to address the effects of land use change on functional diversity along a landscape heterogeneity gradient (De Lima, Dallimer, Atkinson, & Barlow, ). Furthermore, relatively little is known about the effect of edges on the functional diversity of arthropods (but see e.g., Gallé, Szabó, Császar, & Torma, ; Krauss, Gallenberger, & Steffan‐Dewenter, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Landscape configuration, organic management, and within‐field position drive functional diversity of spiders and carabids

Gallé

Happe

Baillod

et al. 2018

Journal of Applied Ecology

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1. Agricultural management intensity and landscape heterogeneity act as the main drivers of biodiversity loss in agricultural landscapes while also determining ecosystem services. The trait-based functional diversity approach offers a way to assess changes in community functionality across agroecosystems. We focused on carabids and spiders, because they are an important component of crop field biodiversity and have significant biological control potential.2. We assessed the effect of small-vs. large-scale agricultural landscapes, organic farming, and within-field position on functional diversity of spiders and carabids.We sampled pairs of organic and conventional winter wheat fields in small-scale agricultural landscapes (former West Germany) and in neighbouring large-scale agricultural landscapes (former East Germany). We sampled arthropods with funnel traps in transects at field edges, field interiors (15 m from edge), and field centres.3. The gradient from field edges towards the centres played an important role: spider body size decreased; ballooning ability increased, and hunting strategy switched from active hunters to more web-builders-presumably, due to higher microhabitat stability in the field centre. Higher trait diversity of spiders in field edges suggested higher biocontrol potential in small-scale agriculture. In contrast, carabid feeding switched from herbivores to carnivores, presumably due to higher pest densities inside crop fields. Furthermore, small-scale agricultural landscapes and organic management supported larger, i.e., less dispersive carabids. Synthesis and applications.In our research, spiders were more sensitive to edge effects and less sensitive to management and landscape composition than carabids. Smaller fields and longer edges, as well as organic management increase carabid functional diversity, which may increase resilience to environmental change. Since many spider species are confined to field edges, the effect of withinfield position on functional diversity is more important in small-scale agricultural landscapes with more edge habitat than in large-scale agricultural landscapes. Our findings suggest that European Union policy should acknowledge the high benefits of small-scale agriculture for the functional role of major predators such as spiders and carabid beetles, as the benefits are equal to those from a conversion to organic agriculture. 64 | Journal of Applied Ecology GALLÉ et AL.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Landscape configuration, organic management, and within‐field position drive functional diversity of spiders and carabids

Gallé

Happe

Baillod

et al. 2018

Journal of Applied Ecology

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“…These climatic parameters act as strong environmental filters (Entling et al 2007), and as a consequence, sandy pastures have a specialized, thermophilous and xerotolerant fauna. This environmental filter reduces the diversity of trait values, resulting in low RaoQ values (Gallé et al 2018b). Certainly, this does not imply the higher conservation value of road verges compared to grasslands and pastures.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The westernmost occurrence of forest-steppe is in the Hungarian Great Plain, where open forest patches are embedded in xeric grasslands (Erdős et al 2018). Since grasslands are characterized by a higher temperature and lower humidity than forests, both habitat types have their own specialised fauna (Gallé et al 2018b). Hungarian forest-steppes have lost more than 93% of their original areas during the past 200 years.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Road verges are important secondary habitats for grassland arthropods

et al. 2019

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Semi-natural linear landscape elements such as road verges, hedgerows and field margins are important in maintaining the connectivity between habitat fragments of highly modified landscapes. Preservation of habitat specialist fauna requires conservation of the remaining natural habitat patches and connectivity of fragments. Our study focuses on the spider, ant and true bug fauna and functional diversity (FD) of fragmented forest steppe patches, moderately grazed pastures and road verges embedded in a matrix of forest plantations in Hungary, Central Europe. We established total 30 sampling sites, 10 in each, the grassland component of forest-steppes (F), pastures (P) and road verges (R) near pine forests. We collected arthropods with pitfall and sweep-net techniques. We calculated FD and species composition of arthropods using linear mixed models. We observed higher species richness in road verges for spiders and ants. We also found higher FD values for spiders and different trait composition for all taxa in road verges when compared with forest steppes and pastures. Species composition suggests that road verges do not serve as habitat for several forest-steppe and grassland species, in spite of the fact that numerous specialist species were found in the road verges. We show that forest steppes have higher species richness of spiders than pastures, and there are differences in species assemblage composition of the two habitat types for all taxa.Our results indicate that road verges should be considered as an important refuge for grassland specialist arthropods, as road verges provide secondary linear habitats for many arthropod species, and we would suggest the maintenance of these grassy strips in order to preserve arthropod biodiversity.

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“…The layer of pine needles on forest floor makes the soil acidic (Selvi et al ., ), and the change in chemical and physical properties of the soil results in loss of fertility (Augusto et al ., ). These processes are responsible for the changes in understory vegetation structure and microhabitat diversity (Chiarucci & De Dominicis, ) and, in turn, lower species diversity of arthropods compared to natural forests (Brockerhoff et al ., ; Gallé et al ., ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Although there are reports on the ecology of forest invertebrates in the context of changes in quality (reviewed by Kuuluvainen et al ., ; Lassauce et al ., ; Schulze et al ., ). The majority of this work focuses on species diversity patterns (Kuuluvainen et al ., ), with few studies focusing on functional diversity of spiders (Magura, ; Gallé et al ., ). The concept of functional diversity helps to explain how ecosystems react to environmental change (Petchey & Gaston, ; Cardoso et al ., ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Forest type interacts with milkweed invasion to affect spider communities

Ingle

Gallé‐Szpisjak

Kaur

et al. 2019

Insect Conserv Diversity

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Non‐native tree plantations constitute a large part of forestation worldwide. Plantations are prone to invasion by exotic herbaceous plant species due to habitat properties, including understory vegetation structure. We established 40 sampling sites in 10 plantation forests. Sites were selected according to tree species (native poplar forests and exotic pine plantations) and common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) density (invaded and non‐invaded sites) in a full factorial design. We collected spiders with pitfall traps. We found a significant effect of A. syriaca invasion on spider functional diversity (Rao's quadratic entropy), with invaded sites having a lower functional diversity than non‐invaded sites. A larger effect of invasion with A. syriaca on the RaoQ of spiders was observed in pine compared to poplar plantations. Spider species were larger, and web‐building spiders were more frequent in poplar forests than in pine plantations. We found no effect of A. syriaca invasion on species richness or abundance of spiders. Species composition of spider assemblages in the two forest types was clearly separated according to non‐metric multidimensional scaling. We identified seven species associated with pine plantations and six species associated with poplar plantations. The similar species richness and the higher functional diversity of non‐invaded sites suggested that these trait states were less similar than invaded sites and that functionally different species were present. In contrast, the invaded sites had lower functional diversities and thus more uniform trait state compositions, suggesting that environmental filtering played an important role in species sorting, making invaded plantations low‐quality secondary habitats for the original spider fauna.

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Spider assemblage structure and functional diversity patterns of natural forest steppes and exotic forest plantations

Cited by 29 publications

References 57 publications

Landscape configuration, organic management, and within‐field position drive functional diversity of spiders and carabids

Landscape configuration, organic management, and within‐field position drive functional diversity of spiders and carabids

Road verges are important secondary habitats for grassland arthropods

Forest type interacts with milkweed invasion to affect spider communities

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