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Trophic level modulates carabid beetle responses to habitat and landscape structure: a pan‐European study
Author(s) -
VANBERGEN ADAM J.,
WOODCOCK BEN A.,
KOIVULA MATTI,
NIEMELÄ JARI,
KOTZE D. JOHAN,
BOLGER TOM,
GOLDEN VALERIE,
DUBS FLORENCE,
BOULANGER GUILLAUME,
SERRANO JOSE,
LENCINA JOSÉ LUÍS,
SERRANO ARTUR,
AGUIAR CARLOS,
GRANDCHAMP ANNECATHERINE,
STOFER SILVIA,
SZÉL GYÖZÖ,
IVITS EVA,
ADLER PETRA,
MARKUS JOCHUM,
WATT ALLAN D.
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
ecological entomology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.865
H-Index - 81
eISSN - 1365-2311
pISSN - 0307-6946
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2311.2010.01175.x
Subject(s) - species richness , ecology , trophic level , habitat , biology , ruderal species , spatial heterogeneity , abundance (ecology) , landscape ecology , generalist and specialist species
1. Anthropogenic pressures have produced heterogeneous landscapes expected to influence diversity differently across trophic levels and spatial scales. 2. We tested how activity density and species richness of carabid trophic groups responded to local habitat and landscape structure (forest percentage cover and habitat richness) in 48 landscape parcels (1 km 2 ) across eight European countries. 3. Local habitat affected activity density, but not species richness, of both trophic groups. Activity densities were greater in rotational cropping compared with other habitats; phytophage densities were also greater in grassland than forest habitats. 4. Controlling for country and habitat effects, we found general trophic group responses to landscape structure. Activity densities of phytophages were positively correlated, and zoophages uncorrelated, with increasing habitat richness. This differential functional group response to landscape structure was consistent across Europe, indicated by a lack of a country × habitat richness interaction. Species richness was unaffected by landscape structure. 5. Phytophage sensitivity to landscape structure may arise from relative dependency on seed from ruderal plants. This trophic adaptation, rare in Carabidae, leads to lower phytophage numbers, increasing vulnerability to demographic and stochastic processes that the greater abundance, species richness, and broader diet of the zoophage group may insure against.