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Effects of management on aquatic tree‐hole communities in temperate forests are mediated by detritus amount and water chemistry
Author(s) -
Gossner Martin M.,
Lade Peggy,
Rohland Anja,
Sichardt Nora,
Kahl Tiemo,
Bauhus Jürgen,
Weisser Wolfgang W.,
Petermann Jana S.
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
journal of animal ecology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.134
H-Index - 157
eISSN - 1365-2656
pISSN - 0021-8790
DOI - 10.1111/1365-2656.12437
Subject(s) - species richness , detritus , ecology , abundance (ecology) , temperate forest , temperate rainforest , forest management , habitat , biodiversity , environmental science , temperate climate , ecosystem , agroforestry , biology
Summary Arthropod communities in water‐filled tree holes may be sensitive to impacts of forest management, for example via changes in environmental conditions such as resource input. We hypothesized that increasing forest management intensity (For MI ) negatively affects arthropod abundance and richness and shifts community composition and trophic structure of tree hole communities. We predicted that this shift is caused by reduced habitat and resource availability at the forest stand scale as well as reduced tree hole size, detritus amount and changed water chemistry at the tree holes scale. We mapped 910 water‐filled tree holes in two regions in Germany and studied 199 tree hole inhabiting arthropod communities. We found that increasing For MI indeed significantly reduced arthropod abundance and richness in water‐filled tree holes. The most important indirect effects of management intensity on tree hole community structure were the reduced amounts of detritus for the tree hole inhabiting organisms and changed water chemistry at the tree hole scale, both of which seem to act as a habitat filter. Although habitat availability at the forest stand scale decreased with increasing management intensity, this unexpectedly increased local arthropod abundance in individual tree holes. However, regional species richness in tree holes significantly decreased with increasing management intensity, most likely due to decreased habitat diversity. We did not find that the management‐driven increase in plant diversity at the forest stand scale affected communities of individual tree holes, for example via resource availability for adults. Our results suggest that management of temperate forests has to target a number of factors at different scales to conserve diverse arthropod communities in water‐filled tree holes.