@article{AllanBossdorfDormannetal.2014, author = {Allan, Eric and Bossdorf, Oliver and Dormann, Carsten F. and Prati, Daniel and Gossner, Martin M. and Tscharntke, Teja and Bl{\"u}thgen, Nico and Bellach, Michaela and Birkhofer, Klaus and Boch, Steffen and B{\"o}hm, Stefan and B{\"o}rschig, Carmen and Chatzinotas, Antonis and Christ, Sabina and Daniel, Rolf and Diek{\"o}tter, Tim and Fischer, Christiane and Friedl, Thomas and Glaser, Karin and Hallmann, Christine and Hodac, Ladislav and H{\"o}lzel, Norbert and Jung, Kirsten and Klein, Alexandra Maria and Klaus, Valentin H. and Kleinebecker, Till and Krauss, Jochen and Lange, Markus and Morris, E. Kathryn and M{\"u}ller, J{\"o}rg and Nacke, Heiko and Pasalic, Esther and Rillig, Matthias C. and Rothenwoehrer, Christoph and Schally, Peter and Scherber, Christoph and Schulze, Waltraud X. and Socher, Stephanie A. and Steckel, Juliane and Steffan-Dewenter, Ingolf and T{\"u}rke, Manfred and Weiner, Christiane N. and Werner, Michael and Westphal, Catrin and Wolters, Volkmar and Wubet, Tesfaye and Gockel, Sonja and Gorke, Martin and Hemp, Andreas and Renner, Swen C. and Sch{\"o}ning, Ingo and Pfeiffer, Simone and K{\"o}nig-Ries, Birgitta and Buscot, Francois and Linsenmair, Karl Eduard and Schulze, Ernst-Detlef and Weisser, Wolfgang W. and Fischer, Markus}, title = {Interannual variation in land-use intensity enhances grassland multidiversity}, series = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America}, volume = {111}, journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America}, number = {1}, publisher = {National Acad. of Sciences}, address = {Washington}, issn = {0027-8424}, doi = {10.1073/pnas.1312213111}, pages = {308 -- 313}, year = {2014}, abstract = {Although temporal heterogeneity is a well-accepted driver of biodiversity, effects of interannual variation in land-use intensity (LUI) have not been addressed yet. Additionally, responses to land use can differ greatly among different organisms; therefore, overall effects of land-use on total local biodiversity are hardly known. To test for effects of LUI (quantified as the combined intensity of fertilization, grazing, and mowing) and interannual variation in LUI (SD in LUI across time), we introduce a unique measure of whole-ecosystem biodiversity, multidiversity. This synthesizes individual diversity measures across up to 49 taxonomic groups of plants, animals, fungi, and bacteria from 150 grasslands. Multidiversity declined with increasing LUI among grasslands, particularly for rarer species and aboveground organisms, whereas common species and belowground groups were less sensitive. However, a high level of interannual variation in LUI increased overall multidiversity at low LUI and was even more beneficial for rarer species because it slowed the rate at which the multidiversity of rare species declined with increasing LUI. In more intensively managed grasslands, the diversity of rarer species was, on average, 18\% of the maximum diversity across all grasslands when LUI was static over time but increased to 31\% of the maximum when LUI changed maximally over time. In addition to decreasing overall LUI, we suggest varying LUI across years as a complementary strategy to promote biodiversity conservation.}, language = {en} } @article{GossnerLewinsohnKahletal.2016, author = {Gossner, Martin M. and Lewinsohn, Thomas M. and Kahl, Tiemo and Grassein, Fabrice and Boch, Steffen and Prati, Daniel and Birkhofer, Klaus and Renner, Swen C. and Sikorski, Johannes and Wubet, Tesfaye and Arndt, Hartmut and Baumgartner, Vanessa and Blaser, Stefan and Bl{\"u}thgen, Nico and B{\"o}rschig, Carmen and Buscot, Francois and Diek{\"o}tter, Tim and Jorge, Leonardo Re and Jung, Kirsten and Keyel, Alexander C. and Klein, Alexandra-Maria and Klemmer, Sandra and Krauss, Jochen and Lange, Markus and M{\"u}ller, J{\"o}rg and Overmann, J{\"o}rg and Pasalic, Esther and Penone, Caterina and Perovic, David J. and Purschke, Oliver and Schall, Peter and Socher, Stephanie A. and Sonnemann, Ilja and Tschapka, Marco and Tscharntke, Teja and T{\"u}rke, Manfred and Venter, Paul Christiaan and Weiner, Christiane N. and Werner, Michael and Wolters, Volkmar and Wurst, Susanne and Westphal, Catrin and Fischer, Markus and Weisser, Wolfgang W. and Allan, Eric}, title = {Land-use intensification causes multitrophic homogenization of grassland communities}, series = {Nature : the international weekly journal of science}, volume = {540}, journal = {Nature : the international weekly journal of science}, publisher = {Nature Publ. Group}, address = {London}, issn = {0028-0836}, doi = {10.1038/nature20575}, pages = {266 -- +}, year = {2016}, abstract = {Land-use intensification is a major driver of biodiversity loss(1,2). Alongside reductions in local species diversity, biotic homogenization at larger spatial scales is of great concern for conservation. Biotic homogenization means a decrease in beta-diversity (the compositional dissimilarity between sites). Most studies have investigated losses in local (alpha)-diversity(1,3) and neglected biodiversity loss at larger spatial scales. Studies addressing beta-diversity have focused on single or a few organism groups (for example, ref. 4), and it is thus unknown whether land-use intensification homogenizes communities at different trophic levels, above-and belowground. Here we show that even moderate increases in local land-use intensity (LUI) cause biotic homogenization across microbial, plant and animal groups, both above- and belowground, and that this is largely independent of changes in alpha-diversity. We analysed a unique grassland biodiversity dataset, with abundances of more than 4,000 species belonging to 12 trophic groups. LUI, and, in particular, high mowing intensity, had consistent effects on beta-diversity across groups, causing a homogenization of soil microbial, fungal pathogen, plant and arthropod communities. These effects were nonlinear and the strongest declines in beta-diversity occurred in the transition from extensively managed to intermediate intensity grassland. LUI tended to reduce local alpha-diversity in aboveground groups, whereas the alpha-diversity increased in belowground groups. Correlations between the alpha-diversity of different groups, particularly between plants and their consumers, became weaker at high LUI. This suggests a loss of specialist species and is further evidence for biotic homogenization. The consistently negative effects of LUI on landscape-scale biodiversity underscore the high value of extensively managed grasslands for conserving multitrophic biodiversity and ecosystem service provision. Indeed, biotic homogenization rather than local diversity loss could prove to be the most substantial consequence of land-use intensification.}, language = {en} } @article{GossnerPasalicLangeetal.2014, author = {Gossner, Martin M. and Pasalic, Esther and Lange, Markus and Lange, Patricia and Boch, Steffen and Hessenm{\"o}ller, Dominik and M{\"u}ller, J{\"o}rg and Socher, Stephanie A. and Fischer, Markus and Schulze, Ernst-Detlef and Weisser, Wolfgang W.}, title = {Differential responses of herbivores and herbivory to management in temperate Eeuropean beech}, series = {PLoS one}, volume = {9}, journal = {PLoS one}, number = {8}, publisher = {PLoS}, address = {San Fransisco}, issn = {1932-6203}, doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0104876}, pages = {16}, year = {2014}, abstract = {Forest management not only affects biodiversity but also might alter ecosystem processes mediated by the organisms, i.e. herbivory the removal of plant biomass by plant-eating insects and other arthropod groups. Aiming at revealing general relationships between forest management and herbivory we investigated aboveground arthropod herbivory in 105 plots dominated by European beech in three different regions in Germany in the sun-exposed canopy of mature beech trees and on beech saplings in the understorey. We separately assessed damage by different guilds of herbivores, i.e. chewing, sucking and scraping herbivores, gall-forming insects and mites, and leaf-mining insects. We asked whether herbivory differs among different forest management regimes (unmanaged, uneven-aged managed, even-aged managed) and among age-classes within even-aged forests. We further tested for consistency of relationships between regions, strata and herbivore guilds. On average, almost 80\% of beech leaves showed herbivory damage, and about 6\% of leaf area was consumed. Chewing damage was most common, whereas leaf sucking and scraping damage were very rare. Damage was generally greater in the canopy than in the understorey, in particular for chewing and scraping damage, and the occurrence of mines. There was little difference in herbivory among differently managed forests and the effects of management on damage differed among regions, strata and damage types. Covariates such as wood volume, tree density and plant diversity weakly influenced herbivory, and effects differed between herbivory types. We conclude that despite of the relatively low number of species attacking beech; arthropod herbivory on beech is generally high. We further conclude that responses of herbivory to forest management are multifaceted and environmental factors such as forest structure variables affecting in particular microclimatic conditions are more likely to explain the variability in herbivory among beech forest plots.}, language = {en} } @article{HeinzeSimonsSeiboldetal.2019, author = {Heinze, Johannes and Simons, Nadja K. and Seibold, Sebastian and Wacker, Alexander and Weithoff, Guntram and Gossner, Martin M. and Prati, Daniel and Bezemer, T. Martijn and Joshi, Jasmin Radha}, title = {The relative importance of plant-soil feedbacks for plant-species performance increases with decreasing intensity of herbivory}, series = {Oecologia}, volume = {190}, journal = {Oecologia}, number = {3}, publisher = {Springer}, address = {New York}, issn = {0029-8549}, doi = {10.1007/s00442-019-04442-9}, pages = {651 -- 664}, year = {2019}, abstract = {Under natural conditions, aboveground herbivory and plant-soil feedbacks (PSFs) are omnipresent interactions strongly affecting individual plant performance. While recent research revealed that aboveground insect herbivory generally impacts the outcome of PSFs, no study tested to what extent the intensity of herbivory affects the outcome. This, however, is essential to estimate the contribution of PSFs to plant performance under natural conditions in the field. Here, we tested PSF effects both with and without exposure to aboveground herbivory for four common grass species in nine grasslands that formed a gradient of aboveground invertebrate herbivory. Without aboveground herbivores, PSFs for each of the four grass species were similar in each of the nine grasslands-both in direction and in magnitude. In the presence of herbivores, however, the PSFs differed from those measured under herbivory exclusion, and depended on the intensity of herbivory. At low levels of herbivory, PSFs were similar in the presence and absence of herbivores, but differed at high herbivory levels. While PSFs without herbivores remained similar along the gradient of herbivory intensity, increasing herbivory intensity mostly resulted in neutral PSFs in the presence of herbivores. This suggests that the relative importance of PSFs for plant-species performance in grassland communities decreases with increasing intensity of herbivory. Hence, PSFs might be more important for plant performance in ecosystems with low herbivore pressure than in ecosystems with large impacts of insect herbivores.}, language = {en} } @article{KlausKleinebeckerPratietal.2013, author = {Klaus, Valentin H. and Kleinebecker, Till and Prati, Daniel and Gossner, Martin M. and Alt, Fabian and Boch, Steffen and Gockel, Sonja and Hemp, Andreas and Lange, Markus and M{\"u}ller, J{\"o}rg and Oelmann, Yvonne and Pasalic, Esther and Renner, Swen C. and Socher, Stephanie A. and T{\"u}rke, Manfred and Weisser, Wolfgang W. and Fischer, Markus and H{\"o}lzel, Norbert}, title = {Does organic grassland farming benefit plant and arthropod diversity at the expense of yield and soil fertility?}, series = {Agriculture, ecosystems \& environment : an international journal for scientific research on the relationship of agriculture and food production to the biosphere}, volume = {177}, journal = {Agriculture, ecosystems \& environment : an international journal for scientific research on the relationship of agriculture and food production to the biosphere}, number = {3}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {Amsterdam}, issn = {0167-8809}, doi = {10.1016/j.agee.2013.05.019}, pages = {1 -- 9}, year = {2013}, abstract = {Organic management is one of the most popular strategies to reduce negative environmental impacts of intensive agriculture. However, little is known about benefits for biodiversity and potential worsening of yield under organic grasslands management across different grassland types, i.e. meadow, pasture and mown pasture. Therefore, we studied the diversity of vascular plants and foliage-living arthropods (Coleoptera, Araneae, Heteroptera, Auchenorrhyncha), yield, fodder quality, soil phosphorus concentrations and land-use intensity of organic and conventional grasslands across three study regions in Germany. Furthermore, all variables were related to the time since conversion to organic management in order to assess temporal developments reaching up to 18 years. Arthropod diversity was significantly higher under organic than conventional management, although this was not the case for Araneae, Heteroptera and Auchenorrhyncha when analyzed separately. On the contrary, arthropod abundance, vascular plant diversity and also yield and fodder quality did not considerably differ between organic and conventional grasslands. Analyses did not reveal differences in the effect of organic management among grassland types. None of the recorded abiotic and biotic parameters showed a significant trend with time since transition to organic management, except soil organic phosphorus concentrations which decreased with time. This implies that permanent grasslands respond slower and probably weaker to organic management than crop fields do. However, as land-use intensity and inorganic soil phosphorus concentrations were significantly lower in organic grasslands, overcoming seed and dispersal limitation by re-introducing plant species might be needed to exploit the full ecological potential of organic grassland management. We conclude that although organic management did not automatically increase the diversity of all studied taxa, it is a reasonable and useful way to support agro-biodiversity.}, language = {en} } @article{LangeTuerkePasalicetal.2014, author = {Lange, Markus and T{\"u}rke, Manfred and Pasalic, Esther and Boch, Steffen and Hessenm{\"o}ller, Dominik and M{\"u}ller, J{\"o}rg and Prati, Daniel and Socher, Stephanie A. and Fischer, Markus and Weisser, Wolfgang W. and Gossner, Martin M.}, title = {Effects of forest management on ground-dwelling beetles (Coleoptera; Carabidae, Staphylinidae) in Central Europe are mainly mediated by changes in forest structure}, series = {Forest ecology and management}, volume = {329}, journal = {Forest ecology and management}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {Amsterdam}, issn = {0378-1127}, doi = {10.1016/j.foreco.2014.06.012}, pages = {166 -- 176}, year = {2014}, abstract = {Forest management is known to influence species diversity of various taxa but inconsistent or even contrasting effects are reported for arthropods. Regional differences in management as well as differences in regional species pools might be responsible for these inconsistencies, but, inter-regional replicated studies that account for regional variability are rare. We investigated the effect of forest type on the abundance, diversity, community structure and composition of two important ground-dwelling beetle families, Carabidae and Staphylinidae, in 149 forest stands distributed over three regions in Germany. In particular we focused on recent forestry history, stand age and dominant tree species, in addition to a number of environmental descriptors. Overall management effects on beetle communities were small and mainly mediated by structural habitat parameters such as the cover of forest canopy or the plant diversity on forest stands. The general response of both beetle taxa to forest management was similar in all regions: abundance and species richness of beetles was higher in older than in younger stands and species richness was lower in unmanaged than in managed stands. The abundance ratio of forest species-to-open habitat species differed between regions, but generally increased from young to old stands, from coniferous to deciduous stands and from managed to unmanaged stands. The response of both beetle families to dominant tree species was variable among regions and staphylinid richness varied in the response to recent forestry history. Our results suggest that current forest management practices change the composition of ground-dwelling beetle communities mainly by favoring generalists and open habitat species. To protect important forest beetle communities and thus the ecosystem functions and services provided by them, we suggest to shelter remaining ancient forests and to develop near-to-nature management strategies by prolonging rotation periods and increasing structural diversity of managed forests. Possible geographic variations in the response of beetle communities need to be considered in conservation-orientated forest management strategies. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.}, language = {en} } @article{ManningGossnerBossdorfetal.2015, author = {Manning, Pete and Gossner, Martin M. and Bossdorf, Oliver and Allan, Eric and Zhang, Yuan-Ye and Prati, Daniel and Bl{\"u}thgen, Nico and Boch, Steffen and B{\"o}hm, Stefan and B{\"o}rschig, Carmen and H{\"o}lzel, Norbert and Jung, Kirsten and Klaus, Valentin H. and Klein, Alexandra Maria and Kleinebecker, Till and Krauss, Jochen and Lange, Markus and M{\"u}ller, J{\"o}rg and Pasalic, Esther and Socher, Stephanie A. and Tschapka, Marco and T{\"u}rke, Manfred and Weiner, Christiane and Werner, Michael and Gockel, Sonja and Hemp, Andreas and Renner, Swen C. and Wells, Konstans and Buscot, Francois and Kalko, Elisabeth K. V. and Linsenmair, Karl Eduard and Weisser, Wolfgang W. and Fischer, Markus}, title = {Grassland management intensification weakens the associations among the diversities of multiple plant and animal taxa}, series = {Ecology : a publication of the Ecological Society of America}, volume = {96}, journal = {Ecology : a publication of the Ecological Society of America}, number = {6}, publisher = {Wiley}, address = {Washington}, issn = {0012-9658}, doi = {10.1890/14-1307.1}, pages = {1492 -- 1501}, year = {2015}, abstract = {Land-use intensification is a key driver of biodiversity change. However, little is known about how it alters relationships between the diversities of different taxonomic groups, which are often correlated due to shared environmental drivers and trophic interactions. Using data from 150 grassland sites, we examined how land-use intensification (increased fertilization, higher livestock densities, and increased mowing frequency) altered correlations between the species richness of 15 plant, invertebrate, and vertebrate taxa. We found that 54\% of pairwise correlations between taxonomic groups were significant and positive among all grasslands, while only one was negative. Higher land-use intensity substantially weakened these correlations(35\% decrease in rand 43\% fewer significant pairwise correlations at high intensity), a pattern which may emerge as a result of biodiversity declines and the breakdown of specialized relationships in these conditions. Nevertheless, some groups (Coleoptera, Heteroptera, Hymenoptera and Orthoptera) were consistently correlated with multidiversity, an aggregate measure of total biodiversity comprised of the standardized diversities of multiple taxa, at both high and lowland-use intensity. The form of intensification was also important; increased fertilization and mowing frequency typically weakened plant-plant and plant-primary consumer correlations, whereas grazing intensification did not. This may reflect decreased habitat heterogeneity under mowing and fertilization and increased habitat heterogeneity under grazing. While these results urge caution in using certain taxonomic groups to monitor impacts of agricultural management on biodiversity, they also suggest that the diversities of some groups are reasonably robust indicators of total biodiversity across a range of conditions.}, language = {en} } @article{MarcusBochDurkaetal.2015, author = {Marcus, Tamar and Boch, Steffen and Durka, Walter and Fischer, Markus and Gossner, Martin M. and M{\"u}ller, J{\"o}rg and Sch{\"o}ning, Ingo and Weisser, Wolfgang W. and Drees, Claudia and Assmann, Thorsten}, title = {Living in Heterogeneous Woodlands - Are Habitat Continuity or Quality Drivers of Genetic Variability in a Flightless Ground Beetle?}, series = {PLoS one}, volume = {10}, journal = {PLoS one}, number = {12}, publisher = {PLoS}, address = {San Fransisco}, issn = {1932-6203}, doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0144217}, pages = {18}, year = {2015}, abstract = {Although genetic diversity is one of the key components of biodiversity, its drivers are still not fully understood. While it is known that genetic diversity is affected both by environmental parameters as well as habitat history, these factors are not often tested together. Therefore, we analyzed 14 microsatellite loci in Abax parallelepipedus, a flightless, forest dwelling ground beetle, from 88 plots in two study regions in Germany. We modeled the effects of historical and environmental variables on allelic richness, and found for one of the regions, the Schorfheide-Chorin, a significant effect of the depth of the litter layer, which is a main component of habitat quality, and of the sampling effort, which serves as an inverse proxy for local population size. For the other region, the Schwabische Alb, none of the potential drivers showed a significant effect on allelic richness. We conclude that the genetic diversity in our study species is being driven by current local population sizes via environmental variables and not by historical processes in the studied regions. This is also supported by lack of genetic differentiation between local populations sampled from ancient and from recent woodlands. We suggest that the potential effects of former fragmentation and recolonization processes have been mitigated by the large and stable local populations of Abax parallelepipedus in combination with the proximity of the ancient and recent woodlands in the studied landscapes.}, language = {en} } @misc{MarcusBochDurkaetal.2015, author = {Marcus, Tamar and Boch, Steffen and Durka, Walter and Gossner, Martin M. and M{\"u}ller, J{\"o}rg and Sch{\"o}ning, Ingo and Weisser, Wolfgang W. and Drees, Claudia and Assmann, Thorsten}, title = {Living in heterogeneous woodlands}, series = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe}, journal = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe}, number = {508}, issn = {1866-8372}, doi = {10.25932/publishup-40845}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-408451}, pages = {18}, year = {2015}, abstract = {Abstract Although genetic diversity is one of the key components of biodiversity, its drivers are still not fully understood. While it is known that genetic diversity is affected both by environmental parameters as well as habitat history, these factors are not often tested together. Therefore, we analyzed 14 microsatellite loci in Abax parallelepipedus, a flightless, forest dwelling ground beetle, from 88 plots in two study regions in Germany. We modeled the effects of historical and environmental variables on allelic richness, and found for one of the regions, the Schorfheide-Chorin, a significant effect of the depth of the litter layer, which is a main component of habitat quality, and of the sampling effort, which serves as an inverse proxy for local population size. For the other region, the Schwabische Alb, none of the potential drivers showed a significant effect on allelic richness. We conclude that the genetic diversity in our study species is being driven by current local population sizes via environmental variables and not by historical processes in the studied regions. This is also supported by lack of genetic differentiation between local populations sampled from ancient and from recent woodlands. We suggest that the potential effects of former fragmentation and recolonization processes have been mitigated by the large and stable local populations of Abax parallelepipedus in combination with the proximity of the ancient and recent woodlands in the studied landscapes.}, language = {en} } @article{PenoneAllanSoliveresetal.2019, author = {Penone, Caterina and Allan, Eric and Soliveres, Santiago and Felipe-Lucia, Maria R. and Gossner, Martin M. and Seibold, Sebastian and Simons, Nadja K. and Schall, Peter and van der Plas, Fons and Manning, Peter and Manzanedo, Ruben D. and Boch, Steffen and Prati, Daniel and Ammer, Christian and Bauhus, Juergen and Buscot, Francois and Ehbrecht, Martin and Goldmann, Kezia and Jung, Kirsten and Mueller, Joerg and Mueller, Joerg C. and Pena, Rodica and Polle, Andrea and Renner, Swen C. and Ruess, Liliane and Schoenig, Ingo and Schrumpf, Marion and Solly, Emily F. and Tschapka, Marco and Weisser, Wolfgang W. and Wubet, Tesfaye and Fischer, Markus}, title = {Specialisation and diversity of multiple trophic groups are promoted by different forest features}, series = {Ecology letters}, volume = {22}, journal = {Ecology letters}, number = {1}, publisher = {Wiley}, address = {Hoboken}, issn = {1461-023X}, doi = {10.1111/ele.13182}, pages = {170 -- 180}, year = {2019}, abstract = {While forest management strongly influences biodiversity, it remains unclear how the structural and compositional changes caused by management affect different community dimensions (e.g. richness, specialisation, abundance or completeness) and how this differs between taxa. We assessed the effects of nine forest features (representing stand structure, heterogeneity and tree composition) on thirteen above- and belowground trophic groups of plants, animals, fungi and bacteria in 150 temperate forest plots differing in their management type. Canopy cover decreased light resources, which increased community specialisation but reduced overall diversity and abundance. Features increasing resource types and diversifying microhabitats (admixing of oaks and conifers) were important and mostly affected richness. Belowground groups responded differently to those aboveground and had weaker responses to most forest features. Our results show that we need to consider forest features rather than broad management types and highlight the importance of considering several groups and community dimensions to better inform conservation.}, language = {en} }