The influence of habitat availability and landscape structure on the distribution of wood cricket (Nemobius sylvestris) on the Isle of Wight, UK

AbstractBird nests are specialized habitats because of their particular composition including nest detritus and bird droppings. In consequence, they attract a specialized arthropod community considered as nidicolous, which includes species only found in bird nests (strictly nidicolous) or sometimes found in bird nests (facultatively nidicolous). Because the factors influencing the entomofauna in bird nests are poorly understood, in autumn 2019, we collected nest material in 86 Barn Owl (Tyto alba) nest boxes. We investigated whether the invertebrate species richness was related to Barn Owl nest box occupancy, the density of available nest boxes and the landscape structure. We found 3,321 nidicolous beetle specimens belonging to 24 species. Species richness of strictly nidicolous beetles was 2.7 times higher in nest boxes occupied by a family of Barn Owls the previous spring compared to unoccupied nest boxes. It was also higher in sites that were more often occupied by Barn Owls in the five previous years and in areas surrounded by a higher proportion of crop fields. For facultatively nidicolous beetles, the density of Barn Owl nest boxes enhanced the species richness. In conclusion, our study suggests that the strictly nidicolous beetles benefit from occupied nest boxes of Barn Owls, whereas facultatively nidicolous beetles look for nest boxes independently of whether Barn Owls occupy them. Our study highlights the importance of bird nests for a suite of invertebrates.

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Palaeogene warping in the Isle of Wight

Geological Magazine ◽

10.1017/s0016756800056430 ◽

1971 ◽

Vol 108 (5) ◽

pp. 399-405 ◽

Cited By ~ 19

Author(s):

B. Daley ◽

N. Edwards

Keyword(s):

Western Europe ◽

Isle Of Wight ◽

Southern England ◽

Lower Oligocene ◽

North Western

SummaryGentle folding or warping, of Lower Oligocene age, pre-dating the main post-Hamstead Beds folding, is indicated where the Bembridge Marls rest unconformably on eroded Bembridge Limestone. The folding appears to have been along generally NW–SE trending axes. This trend is compatible with penecontemporaneous and even earlier folding in Southern England and adjacent parts of north-western Europe. In Southern England, the main folding may have been earlier than the Miocene age generally accepted.

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Landscape structure affects the sunflower visiting frequency of insect pollinators

Scientific Reports ◽

10.1038/s41598-021-87650-9 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Károly Lajos ◽

Ferenc Samu ◽

Áron Domonkos Bihaly ◽

Dávid Fülöp ◽

Miklós Sárospataki

Keyword(s):

Landscape Structure ◽

Honey Bees ◽

Agricultural Landscape ◽

Edge Density ◽

Wild Bees ◽

Natural Habitats ◽

Mass Flowering ◽

Positive Effects ◽

Pollinator Community ◽

Foraging Ranges

AbstractMass-flowering crop monocultures, like sunflower, cannot harbour a permanent pollinator community. Their pollination is best secured if both managed honey bees and wild pollinators are present in the agricultural landscape. Semi-natural habitats are known to be the main foraging and nesting areas of wild pollinators, thus benefiting their populations, whereas crops flowering simultaneously may competitively dilute pollinator densities. In our study we asked how landscape structure affects major pollinator groups’ visiting frequency on 36 focal sunflower fields, hypothesising that herbaceous semi-natural (hSNH) and sunflower patches in the landscape neighbourhood will have a scale-dependent effect. We found that an increasing area and/or dispersion of hSNH areas enhanced the visitation of all pollinator groups. These positive effects were scale-dependent and corresponded well with the foraging ranges of the observed bee pollinators. In contrast, an increasing edge density of neighbouring sunflower fields resulted in considerably lower visiting frequencies of wild bees. Our results clearly indicate that the pollination of sunflower is dependent on the composition and configuration of the agricultural landscape. We conclude that an optimization of the pollination can be achieved if sufficient amount of hSNH areas with good dispersion are provided and mass flowering crops do not over-dominate the agricultural landscape.

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Changes in Landscape Structure in the Municipalities of the Nitra District (Slovak Republic) Due to Expanding Suburbanization

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su13031205 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (3) ◽

pp. 1205

Author(s):

Zuzana Pucherová ◽

Regina Mišovičová ◽

Gabriel Bugár ◽

Henrich Grežo

Keyword(s):

Landscape Structure ◽

Slovak Republic ◽

Satellite Image ◽

Analytical Data ◽

European Space Agency ◽

Rural Landscape ◽

Landscape Features ◽

Main Research ◽

Spatial Changes ◽

The Impact

Suburbanization, as a set of several factors, influences and changes the landscape structure of smaller municipalities in the hinterland of larger cities. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the built-up areas related to suburbanization within three time horizons—in 2002, 2005, and 2020—in 62 municipalities of the district (including two cities, Nitra and Vráble). This study examines the process of spatial changes in landscape features (residential, industrial, agricultural, transport) related to suburbanization between 2002 and 2005 and between 2002 and 2020. The input analytical data were digital orthophotomaps from 2002 and 2005 and the current orthophotomosaics of the Slovak Republic from 2017 (GKÚ, Bratislava), updated for the year 2020 using Sentinel 2 satellite image data (European Space Agency). The impact of suburbanization processes between 2002 and 2005 did not reach the dimensions of the changes that occurred due to suburbanization processes between 2002 and 2020 or 2005 and 2020. The main research objective of the article is the identification and assessment of these changes. We determined which landscape features related to suburbanization affected spatial changes in municipalities of the district Nitra. The total area affected by one of the suburbanization processes monitored by us reached 92.52 ha in the period between 2002 and 2005. Between the years 2002 and 2020, the area reached a total of 2272.82 ha, which is an increase of 2180.30 ha in 2020 compared to 2002. This included mainly the expansion of settlements or housing (60.15%), industrial areas (29.31%), transport facilities (4.35%), agricultural areas (0.73%), and other areas (5.46%). These results show expanding suburbanization for the period from 2002 to 2020 and that this process has been gaining momentum in the municipalities of the Nitra district, especially in recent years, which changes the look of rural municipalities and the character of a typical rural landscape.

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Testing the Likeable, Therefore Abundant Hypothesis: Bird Species Likeability by Urban Residents Varies Significantly with Species Traits

Land ◽

10.3390/land10050487 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 10 (5) ◽

pp. 487

Author(s):

Lillian Collins ◽

Grant D. Paton ◽

Sara A. Gagné

Keyword(s):

Undergraduate Students ◽

Species Conservation ◽

Bird Species ◽

Bird Community ◽

Species Traits ◽

Community Change ◽

Habitat Availability ◽

Urban Residents ◽

Behavioral Traits

The urbanization of landscapes filters bird communities to favor particular species traits, driven in part by the changes that homeowners make to the amount and quality of habitat in yards. We suggest that an ultimate driver of these proximate mechanisms underlying bird community change with respect to urbanization is the likeability of species traits by urban residents. We hypothesize that bird species likeability, modulated by species traits, influences the degree to which homeowners alter the availability and quality of habitat on their properties and thereby affects species population sizes in urbanized landscapes. We refer to this new hypothesis as the Likeable, therefore Abundant Hypothesis. The Likeable, therefore Abundant Hypothesis predicts that (1) bird species likeability varies with species morphological and behavioral traits, (2) homeowners use trait-based likeability as a motivator to modify habitat availability and quality on their properties, and (3) residential habitat availability and quality influences species populations at landscape scales. We tested the first prediction of the Likeable, therefore Abundant Hypothesis using a survey of 298 undergraduate students at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte who were asked to rank their preferences for 85 forest generalist and edge/open country songbird species grouped according to 10 morphological and behavioral traits. Survey respondents preferred very small, primarily blue or black species that are insectivorous, aerial or bark foragers, residents, and culturally unimportant. On the other hand, respondents disliked large or very large, primarily yellow or orange species that forage on the ground and/or forage by flycatching, are migratory, and are culturally important. If the Likeable, therefore Abundant Hypothesis is true, natural resource managers and planners could capitalize on the high likeability of species that are nevertheless negatively affected by urbanization to convince homeowners and residents to actively manage their properties for species conservation.

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