TY - JOUR A1 - Reeg, Jette A1 - Strigl, Lea A1 - Jeltsch, Florian T1 - Agricultural buffer zone thresholds to safeguard functional bee diversity BT - Insights from a community modeling approach JF - Ecology and Evolution N2 - Wild bee species are important pollinators in agricultural landscapes. However, population decline was reported over the last decades and is still ongoing. While agricultural intensification is a major driver of the rapid loss of pollinating species, transition zones between arable fields and forest or grassland patches, i.e., agricultural buffer zones, are frequently mentioned as suitable mitigation measures to support wild bee populations and other pollinator species. Despite the reported general positive effect, it remains unclear which amount of buffer zones is needed to ensure a sustainable and permanent impact for enhancing bee diversity and abundance. To address this question at a pollinator community level, we implemented a process-based, spatially explicit simulation model of functional bee diversity dynamics in an agricultural landscape. More specifically, we introduced a variable amount of agricultural buffer zones (ABZs) at the transition of arable to grassland, or arable to forest patches to analyze the impact on bee functional diversity and functional richness. We focused our study on solitary bees in a typical agricultural area in the Northeast of Germany. Our results showed positive effects with at least 25% of virtually implemented agricultural buffer zones. However, higher amounts of ABZs of at least 75% should be considered to ensure a sufficient increase in Shannon diversity and decrease in quasi-extinction risks. These high amounts of ABZs represent effective conservation measures to safeguard the stability of pollination services provided by solitary bee species. As the model structure can be easily adapted to other mobile species in agricultural landscapes, our community approach offers the chance to compare the effectiveness of conservation measures also for other pollinator communities in future. KW - agricultural landscape KW - buffer zones KW - community model KW - functional traits KW - solitary bees KW - spatially explicit Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.8748 SN - 2045-7758 VL - 12 SP - 1 EP - 17 PB - Wiley Online Library CY - Hoboken, New Jersey, USA ET - 3 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Reeg, Jette A1 - Strigl, Lea A1 - Jeltsch, Florian T1 - Agricultural buffer zone thresholds to safeguard functional bee diversity: Insights from a community modeling approach T2 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - Wild bee species are important pollinators in agricultural landscapes. However, population decline was reported over the last decades and is still ongoing. While agricultural intensification is a major driver of the rapid loss of pollinating species, transition zones between arable fields and forest or grassland patches, i.e., agricultural buffer zones, are frequently mentioned as suitable mitigation measures to support wild bee populations and other pollinator species. Despite the reported general positive effect, it remains unclear which amount of buffer zones is needed to ensure a sustainable and permanent impact for enhancing bee diversity and abundance. To address this question at a pollinator community level, we implemented a process-based, spatially explicit simulation model of functional bee diversity dynamics in an agricultural landscape. More specifically, we introduced a variable amount of agricultural buffer zones (ABZs) at the transition of arable to grassland, or arable to forest patches to analyze the impact on bee functional diversity and functional richness. We focused our study on solitary bees in a typical agricultural area in the Northeast of Germany. Our results showed positive effects with at least 25% of virtually implemented agricultural buffer zones. However, higher amounts of ABZs of at least 75% should be considered to ensure a sufficient increase in Shannon diversity and decrease in quasi-extinction risks. These high amounts of ABZs represent effective conservation measures to safeguard the stability of pollination services provided by solitary bee species. As the model structure can be easily adapted to other mobile species in agricultural landscapes, our community approach offers the chance to compare the effectiveness of conservation measures also for other pollinator communities in future. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe - 1281 KW - agricultural landscape KW - buffer zones KW - community model KW - functional traits KW - solitary bees KW - spatially explicit Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-570800 SN - 1866-8372 IS - 1281 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Mendes Ferreira, Clara A1 - Dammhahn, Melanie A1 - Eccard, Jana T1 - Forager-mediated cascading effects on food resource species diversity T2 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - Perceived predation risk varies in space and time. Foraging in this landscape of fear alters forager-resource interactions via cascading nonconsumptive effects. Estimating these indirect effects is difficult in natural systems. Here, we applied a novel measure to quantify the diversity at giving-up density that allows to test how spatial variation in perceived predation risk modifies the diversity of multispecies resources at local and regional spatial levels. Furthermore, we evaluated whether the nonconsumptive effects on resource species diversity can be explained by the preferences of foragers for specific functional traits and by the forager species richness. We exposed rodents of a natural community to artificial food patches, each containing an initial multispecies resource community of eight species (10 items each) mixed in sand. We sampled 35 landscapes, each containing seven patches in a spatial array, to disentangle effects at local (patch) and landscape levels. We used vegetation height as a proxy for perceived predation risk. After a period of three nights, we counted how many and which resource species were left in each patch to measure giving-up density and resource diversity at the local level (alpha diversity) and the regional level (gamma diversity and beta diversity). Furthermore, we used wildlife cameras to identify foragers and assess their species richness. With increasing vegetation height, i.e., decreasing perceived predation risk, giving-up density, and local alpha and regional gamma diversity decreased, and patches became less similar within a landscape (beta diversity increased). Foragers consumed more of the bigger and most caloric resources. The higher the forager species richness, the lower the giving-up density, and alpha and gamma diversity. Overall, spatial variation of perceived predation risk of foragers had measurable cascading effects on local and regional resource species biodiversity, independent of the forager species. Thus, nonconsumptive predation effects modify forager-resource interactions and might act as an equalizing mechanism for species coexistence. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe - 1312 KW - coexistence KW - functional traits KW - giving-up density KW - landscape of fear KW - perceived predation risk Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-585092 SN - 1866-8372 IS - 1312 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Mendes Ferreira, Clara A1 - Dammhahn, Melanie A1 - Eccard, Jana T1 - Forager-mediated cascading effects on food resource species diversity JF - Ecology and Evolution N2 - Perceived predation risk varies in space and time. Foraging in this landscape of fear alters forager-resource interactions via cascading nonconsumptive effects. Estimating these indirect effects is difficult in natural systems. Here, we applied a novel measure to quantify the diversity at giving-up density that allows to test how spatial variation in perceived predation risk modifies the diversity of multispecies resources at local and regional spatial levels. Furthermore, we evaluated whether the nonconsumptive effects on resource species diversity can be explained by the preferences of foragers for specific functional traits and by the forager species richness. We exposed rodents of a natural community to artificial food patches, each containing an initial multispecies resource community of eight species (10 items each) mixed in sand. We sampled 35 landscapes, each containing seven patches in a spatial array, to disentangle effects at local (patch) and landscape levels. We used vegetation height as a proxy for perceived predation risk. After a period of three nights, we counted how many and which resource species were left in each patch to measure giving-up density and resource diversity at the local level (alpha diversity) and the regional level (gamma diversity and beta diversity). Furthermore, we used wildlife cameras to identify foragers and assess their species richness. With increasing vegetation height, i.e., decreasing perceived predation risk, giving-up density, and local alpha and regional gamma diversity decreased, and patches became less similar within a landscape (beta diversity increased). Foragers consumed more of the bigger and most caloric resources. The higher the forager species richness, the lower the giving-up density, and alpha and gamma diversity. Overall, spatial variation of perceived predation risk of foragers had measurable cascading effects on local and regional resource species biodiversity, independent of the forager species. Thus, nonconsumptive predation effects modify forager-resource interactions and might act as an equalizing mechanism for species coexistence. KW - coexistence KW - functional traits KW - giving-up density KW - landscape of fear KW - perceived predation risk Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.9523 SN - 2045-7758 VL - 12 IS - 11 PB - John Wiley & Sons ER - TY - THES A1 - Kath, Nadja Jeanette T1 - Functional traits determine biomass dynamics, coexistence and energetics in plankton food webs N2 - Plankton food webs are the basis of marine and limnetic ecosystems. Especially aquatic ecosystems of high biodiversity provide important ecosystem services for humankind as providers of food, coastal protection, climate regulation, and tourism. Understanding the dynamics of biomass and coexistence in these food webs is a first step to understanding the ecosystems. It also lays the foundation for the development of management strategies for the maintenance of the marine and freshwater biodiversity despite anthropogenic influences. Natural food webs are highly complex, and thus often equally complex methods are needed to analyse and understand them well. Models can help to do so as they depict simplified parts of reality. In the attempt to get a broader understanding of the complex food webs, diverse methods are used to investigate different questions. In my first project, we compared the energetics of a food chain in two versions of an allometric trophic network model. In particular, we solved the problem of unrealistically high trophic transfer efficiencies (up to 70%) by accounting for both basal respiration and activity respiration, which decreased the trophic transfer efficiency to realistic values of ≤30%. Next in my second project I turned to plankton food webs and especially phytoplankton traits. Investigating a long-term data set from Lake Constance we found evidence for a trade-off between defence and growth rate in this natural phytoplankton community. I continued working with this data set in my third project focusing on ciliates, the main grazer of phytoplankton in spring. Boosted regression trees revealed that temperature and predators have the highest influence on net growth rates of ciliates. We finally investigated in my fourth project a food web model inspired by ciliates to explore the coexistence of plastic competitors and to study the new concept of maladaptive switching, which revealed some drawbacks of plasticity: faster adaptation led to higher maladaptive switching towards undefended phenotypes which reduced autotroph biomass and coexistence and increased consumer biomass. It became obvious that even well-established models should be critically questioned as it is important not to forget reality on the way to a simplistic model. The results showed furthermore that long-term data sets are necessary as they can help to disentangle complex natural processes. Last, one should keep in mind that the interplay between models and experiments/ field data can deliver fruitful insights about our complex world. N2 - Plankton-Nahrungsnetze sind die Grundlage mariner und limnischer Ökosysteme. Besonders die aquatischen Ökosysteme mit hoher Biodiversität erbringen wichtige Ökosystemdienstleistungen für uns Menschen wie beispielsweise die Bereitstellung von Nahrung, Küstenschutz, Klimaregulation sowie Tourismus. Die Dynamiken und die Koexistenz der Arten in diesen Ökosystemen zu verstehen, ist ein erster Schritt für die Entwicklung von Möglichkeiten zum Schutz ihrer Biodiversität. Aufgrund der hohen Komplexität natürlicher Nahrungsnetze braucht es oft ebenso komplexe Methoden um sie zu analysieren und zu verstehen. Modelle können dabei unterstützen, da sie Teile der Realität vereinfacht abbilden. In meiner Dissertation arbeitete ich mit verschiedenen Nahrungsnetzmodellen, um die Dynamiken in Nahrungsnetzen zu verstehen. In meinem ersten Projekt haben wir die Energieflüsse einer Nahrungskette in zwei Versionen eines allometrisch skalierten Nahrungsnetzmodells untersucht. Wenn nur die klassische basale Respiration einbezogen wird, steigt die trophische Transfereffizienz auf bis zu unrealistische 70 %. Durch die Einbeziehung der aktivitätsbezogenen Respiration sank die trophische Transfereffizienz auf realistische Werte von maximal 30 %. Danach wandte ich mich in meinem zweiten Projekt Plankton-Nahrungsnetzen und den Eigenschaften des Phytoplanktons zu. Bei der Untersuchung eines Langzeitdatensatzes von 21 Jahren aus dem Bodensee fanden wir einen Beweis für einen Trade-off zwischen Verteidigung und Wachstumsrate in einer natürlichen Phytoplankton-gemeinschaft. In diesem Datensatz konzentrierte ich mich anschließend in meinem dritten Projket auf Ciliaten, welche die wichtigsten Fraßfeinde von Phytoplankton im Frühjahr darstellen. Die Methode der boosted regression trees zeigte, dass Temperatur und Räuber den größten Einfluss auf die Nettowachstumsraten der Ciliaten haben. Schließlich nutzten wir in meinem vierten Projekt ein von Ciliaten inspiriertes Nahrungsnetzmodell, um die Koexistenz von Konkurrenten mit veränderlichen Eigenschaften und das neue Konzept des maladaptive switching zu untersuchen, welches Nachteile der Plastizität zeigt: höhere Wechselraten zwischen den Phänotypen führten zu höherem maladaptive switching in Richtung der unverteidigten Phänotypen, was die Biomasse und Koexistenz der Autotrophen reduziert und die Biomasse des Konsumenten erhöht. Es wurde offensichtlich, dass auch etablierte Modelle kritisch hinterfragt werden müssen, da es wichtig ist, die Realität auf dem Weg zu einem einfachen Modell nicht zu vergessen. Meine Ergebnisse zeigten des Weiteren, wie wichtig Langzeitdatensätze sind, da sie helfen können, komplexe natürliche Prozesse zu beleuchten. Dieses Wechselspiel zwischen Modellen und Daten aus Experimenten oder Felduntersuchungen kann fruchtbare Ergebnisse liefern und zu einem größeren Verständnis unserer komplexen Welt beitragen. KW - functional traits KW - plankton food web KW - coexistence KW - modelling KW - Modellierung KW - Planktonnahrungsnetz KW - Koexistenz Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-551239 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Eccard, Jana A1 - Mendes Ferreira, Clara A1 - Peredo Arce, Andres A1 - Dammhahn, Melanie T1 - Top-down effects of foraging decisions on local, landscape and regional biodiversity of resources (DivGUD) JF - Ecology letters N2 - Foraging by consumers acts as a biotic filtering mechanism for biodiversity at the trophic level of resources. Variation in foraging behaviour has cascading effects on abundance, diversity, and functional trait composition of the community of resource species. Here we propose diversity at giving-up density (DivGUD), i.e. when foragers quit exploiting a patch, as a novel concept and simple measure quantifying cascading effects at multiple spatial scales. In experimental landscapes with an assemblage of plant seeds, patch residency of wild rodents decreased local alpha-DivGUD (via elevated mortality of species with large seeds) and regional gamma-DivGUD, while dissimilarity among patches in a landscape (beta-DivGUD) increased. By linking theories of adaptive foraging behaviour with community ecology, DivGUD allows to investigate cascading indirect predation effects, e.g. the ecology-of-fear framework, feedbacks between functional trait composition of resource species and consumer communities, and effects of inter-individual differences among foragers on the biodiversity of resource communities. KW - biodiversity KW - cascading effects KW - foraging behaviour KW - functional traits KW - giving-up density KW - landscape of fear KW - optimal foraging KW - patch use Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.13901 SN - 1461-0248 VL - 25 IS - 1 SP - 3 EP - 16 PB - Wiley-Blackwell CY - Oxford [u.a.] ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kernecker, Maria A1 - Fienitz, Meike A1 - Nendel, Claas A1 - Paetzig, Marlene A1 - Walzl, Karin Pirhofer A1 - Raatz, Larissa A1 - Schmidt, Martin A1 - Wulf, Monika A1 - Zscheischler, Jana T1 - Transition zones across agricultural field boundaries for integrated landscape research and management of biodiversity and yields JF - Ecological solutions and evidence N2 - Biodiversity conservation and agricultural production have been largely framed as separate goals for landscapes in the discourse on land use. Although there is an increasing tendency to move away from this dichotomy in theory, the tendency is perpetuated by the spatially explicit approaches used in research and management practice. Transition zones (TZ) have previously been defined as areas where two adjacent fields or patches interact, and so they occur abundantly throughout agricultural landscapes. Biodiversity patterns in TZ have been extensively studied, but their relationship to yield patterns and social-ecological dimensions has been largely neglected. Focusing on European, temperate agricultural landscapes, we outline three areas of research and management that together demonstrate how TZ might be used to facilitate an integrated landscape approach: (i) plant and animal species' use and response to boundaries and the resulting effects on yield, for a deeper understanding of how landscape structure shapes quantity and quality of TZ; (ii) local knowledge on field or patch-level management and its interactions with biodiversity and yield in TZ, and (iii) conflict prevention and collaborative management across land-use boundaries. KW - ecotones KW - field boundaries KW - functional traits KW - landscape complexity; KW - land-use conflicts KW - local knowledge KW - spillovers Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/2688-8319.12122 SN - 2688-8319 VL - 3 IS - 1 PB - Wiley CY - Hoboken ER -