TY  - JOUR
A1  - Blüthgen, Nico
A1  - Dormann, Carsten F.
A1  - Prati, Daniel
A1  - Klaus, Valentin H.
A1  - Kleinebecker, Till
A1  - Hoelzel, Norbert
A1  - Alt, Fabian
A1  - Boch, Steffen
A1  - Gockel, Sonja
A1  - Hemp, Andreas
A1  - Müller, Jörg
A1  - Nieschulze, Jens
A1  - Renner, Swen C.
A1  - Schöning, Ingo
A1  - Schumacher, Uta
A1  - Socher, Stephanie A.
A1  - Wells, Konstans
A1  - Birkhofer, Klaus
A1  - Buscot, Francois
A1  - Oelmann, Yvonne
A1  - Rothenwöhrer, Christoph
A1  - Scherber, Christoph
A1  - Tscharntke, Teja
A1  - Weiner, Christiane N.
A1  - Fischer, Markus
A1  - Kalko, Elisabeth K. V.
A1  - Linsenmair, Karl Eduard
A1  - Schulze, Ernst-Detlef
A1  - Weisser, Wolfgang W.
T1  - A quantitative index of land-use intensity in grasslands integrating mowing, grazing and fertilization
JF  - Basic and applied ecology : Journal of the Gesellschaft für Ökologie
N2  - Land use is increasingly recognized as a major driver of biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in many current research projects. In grasslands, land use is often classified by categorical descriptors such as pastures versus meadows or fertilized versus unfertilized sites. However, to account for the quantitative variation of multiple land-use types in heterogeneous landscapes, a quantitative, continuous index of land-use intensity (LUI) is desirable. Here we define such a compound, additive LUI index for managed grasslands including meadows and pastures. The LUI index summarizes the standardized intensity of three components of land use, namely fertilization, mowing, and livestock grazing at each site. We examined the performance of the LUI index to predict selected response variables on up to 150 grassland sites in the Biodiversity Exploratories in three regions in Germany(Alb, Hainich, Schorlheide). We tested the average Ellenberg nitrogen indicator values of the plant community, nitrogen and phosphorus concentration in the aboveground plant biomass, plant-available phosphorus concentration in the top soil, and soil C/N ratio, and the first principle component of these five response variables.
 The LUI index significantly predicted the principal component of all five response variables, as well as some of the individual responses. Moreover, vascular plant diversity decreased significantly with LUI in two regions (Alb and Hainich).
 Inter-annual changes in management practice were pronounced from 2006 to 2008, particularly due to variation in grazing intensity. This rendered the selection of the appropriate reference year(s) an important decision for analyses of land-use effects, whereas details in the standardization of the index were of minor importance. We also tested several alternative calculations of a LUI index, but all are strongly linearly correlated to the proposed index.
 The proposed LUI index reduces the complexity of agricultural practices to a single dimension and may serve as a baseline to test how different groups of organisms and processes respond to land use. In combination with more detailed analyses, this index may help to unravel whether and how land-use intensities, associated disturbance levels or other local or regional influences drive ecological processes.
KW  - Agro-ecosystems
KW  - Biodiversity exploratories
KW  - Grassland management
KW  - Land-use impacts
KW  - Livestock density
KW  - Meadows
KW  - Nitrogen
KW  - Pastures
Y1  - 2012
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.baae.2012.04.001
SN  - 1439-1791
VL  - 13
IS  - 3
SP  - 207
EP  - 220
PB  - Elsevier
CY  - Jena
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Näther, Astrid
A1  - Fösel, Bärbel U.
A1  - Nägele, Verena
A1  - Wüst, Pia K.
A1  - Weinert, Jan
A1  - Bonkowski, Michael
A1  - Alt, Fabian
A1  - Oelmann, Yvonne
A1  - Polle, Andrea
A1  - Lohaus, Gertrud
A1  - Gockel, Sonja
A1  - Hemp, Andreas
A1  - Kalko, Elisabeth K. V.
A1  - Linsenmair, Karl Eduard
A1  - Pfeiffer, Simone
A1  - Renner, Swen
A1  - Schöning, Ingo
A1  - Weisser, Wolfgang W.
A1  - Wells, Konstans
A1  - Fischer, Markus
A1  - Overmann, Jörg
A1  - Friedrich, Michael W.
T1  - Environmental factors affect acidobacterial communities below the subgroup level in Grassland and Forest Soils
JF  - Applied and environmental microbiology
N2  - In soil, Acidobacteria constitute on average 20% of all bacteria, are highly diverse, and are physiologically active in situ. However, their individual functions and interactions with higher taxa in soil are still unknown. Here, potential effects of land use, soil properties, plant diversity, and soil nanofauna on acidobacterial community composition were studied by cultivation-independent methods in grassland and forest soils from three different regions in Germany. The analysis of 16S rRNA gene clone libraries representing all studied soils revealed that grassland soils were dominated by subgroup Gp6 and forest soils by subgroup Gp1 Acidobacteria. The analysis of a large number of sites (n = 57) by 16S rRNA gene fingerprinting methods (terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism [T-RFLP] and denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis [DGGE]) showed that Acidobacteria diversities differed between grassland and forest soils but also among the three different regions. Edaphic properties, such as pH, organic carbon, total nitrogen, C/N ratio, phosphorus, nitrate, ammonium, soil moisture, soil temperature, and soil respiration, had an impact on community composition as assessed by fingerprinting. However, interrelations with environmental parameters among subgroup terminal restriction fragments (T-RFs) differed significantly, e.g., different Gp1 T-RFs correlated positively or negatively with nitrogen content. Novel significant correlations of Acidobacteria subpopulations (i.e., individual populations within subgroups) with soil nanofauna and vascular plant diversity were revealed only by analysis of clone sequences. Thus, for detecting novel interrelations of environmental parameters with Acidobacteria, individual populations within subgroups have to be considered.
Y1  - 2012
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1128/AEM.01325-12
SN  - 0099-2240
VL  - 78
IS  - 20
SP  - 7398
EP  - 7406
PB  - American Society for Microbiology
CY  - Washington
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Birkhofer, Klaus
A1  - Schöning, Ingo
A1  - Alt, Fabian
A1  - Herold, Nadine
A1  - Klarner, Bernhard
A1  - Maraun, Mark
A1  - Marhan, Sven
A1  - Oelmann, Yvonne
A1  - Wubet, Tesfaye
A1  - Yurkov, Andrey
A1  - Begerow, Dominik
A1  - Berner, Doreen
A1  - Buscot, Francois
A1  - Daniel, Rolf
A1  - Diekötter, Tim
A1  - Ehnes, Roswitha B.
A1  - Erdmann, Georgia
A1  - Fischer, Christiane
A1  - Fösel, Baerbel
A1  - Groh, Janine
A1  - Gutknecht, Jessica
A1  - Kandeler, Ellen
A1  - Lang, Christa
A1  - Lohaus, Gertrud
A1  - Meyer, Annabel
A1  - Nacke, Heiko
A1  - Näther, Astrid
A1  - Overmann, Jörg
A1  - Polle, Andrea
A1  - Pollierer, Melanie M.
A1  - Scheu, Stefan
A1  - Schloter, Michael
A1  - Schulze, Ernst-Detlef
A1  - Schulze, Waltraud X.
A1  - Weinert, Jan
A1  - Weisser, Wolfgang W.
A1  - Wolters, Volkmar
A1  - Schrumpf, Marion
T1  - General relationships between abiotic soil properties and soil biota across spatial scales and different land-use types
JF  - PLoS one
N2  - Very few principles have been unraveled that explain the relationship between soil properties and soil biota across large spatial scales and different land-use types. Here, we seek these general relationships using data from 52 differently managed grassland and forest soils in three study regions spanning a latitudinal gradient in Germany. We hypothesize that, after extraction of variation that is explained by location and land-use type, soil properties still explain significant proportions of variation in the abundance and diversity of soil biota. If the relationships between predictors and soil organisms were analyzed individually for each predictor group, soil properties explained the highest amount of variation in soil biota abundance and diversity, followed by land-use type and sampling location. After extraction of variation that originated from location or land-use, abiotic soil properties explained significant amounts of variation in fungal, meso-and macrofauna, but not in yeast or bacterial biomass or diversity. Nitrate or nitrogen concentration and fungal biomass were positively related, but nitrate concentration was negatively related to the abundances of Collembola and mites and to the myriapod species richness across a range of forest and grassland soils. The species richness of earthworms was positively correlated with clay content of soils independent of sample location and land-use type. Our study indicates that after accounting for heterogeneity resulting from large scale differences among sampling locations and land-use types, soil properties still explain significant proportions of variation in fungal and soil fauna abundance or diversity. However, soil biota was also related to processes that act at larger spatial scales and bacteria or soil yeasts only showed weak relationships to soil properties. We therefore argue that more general relationships between soil properties and soil biota can only be derived from future studies that consider larger spatial scales and different land-use types.
Y1  - 2012
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0043292
SN  - 1932-6203
VL  - 7
IS  - 8
PB  - PLoS
CY  - San Fransisco
ER  -