Ecological response hides behind the species abundance distribution: Community response to low-intensity disturbance in managed grasslands

Ecology and Evolution
Atte Komonen, Merja Elo

Abstract

Land-use and management are disturbance factors that have diverse effects on community composition and structure. In traditional rural grasslands, such as meadows and pastures, low-intensity management is maintained to enhance biodiversity. Maintenance of road verges, in turn, creates habitat, which may complement traditional rural grasslands. To evaluate the effect of low-intensity disturbance on insect communities, we characterized species abundance distributions (SAD) for Carabidae, Formicidae, and Heteroptera in three grassland types, which differed in management: meadows, pastures, and road verges. The shape of SAD was estimated with three parameters: abundance decay rate, dominance, and rarity. We compared the SAD shape among the grassland types and tested the effect of environmental heterogeneity (plant species richness) and disturbance intensity (trampling in pastures) on SADs. The shape of SADs did not differ among the grassland types but among the taxonomic groups instead. Abundance decay rate and dominance were larger for Formicidae, and rarity smaller, than for Carabidae and Heteroptera. For Carabidae and window-trapped Heteroptera, rarity increased with increasing plant species richness. For Formicidae, dominance i...Continue Reading

References

Aug 8, 1979·Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences·J S Gray
Jul 12, 2008·Ecology Letters·Maria Dornelas, Sean R Connolly
Sep 25, 2012·Oecologia·Jian D L YenRalph Mac Nally
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Dec 26, 2013·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Eric AllanMarkus Fischer
Jul 31, 2014·The Journal of Animal Ecology·Nadja K SimonsWolfgang W Weisser

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