Will I stay or will I go? Plant species‐specific response and tolerance to high land‐use intensity in temperate grassland ecosystems

Worldwide agriculture is one of the main drivers of biodiversity decline. Effective conservation strategies depend on the type of relationship between biodiversity and land-use intensity, but to date the shape of this relationship is unknown. We linked plant species richness with nitrogen (N) input as an indicator of land-use intensity on 130 grasslands and 141 arable fields in six European countries. Using Poisson regression, we found that plant species richness was significantly negatively related to N input on both field types after the effects of confounding environmental factors had been accounted for. Subsequent analyses showed that exponentially declining relationships provided a better fit than linear or unimodal relationships and that this was largely the result of the response of rare species (relative cover less than 1%). Our results indicate that conservation benefits are disproportionally more costly on high-intensity than on low-intensity farmland. For example, reducing N inputs from 75 to 0 and 400 to 60 kg ha −1 yr −1 resulted in about the same estimated species gain for arable plants. Conservation initiatives are most (cost-)effective if they are preferentially implemented in extensively farmed areas that still support high levels of biodiversity.

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The productivity-biodiversity relationship varies across diversity dimensions

Nature Communications ◽

10.1038/s41467-019-13678-1 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 10 (1) ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Philipp Brun ◽

Niklaus E. Zimmermann ◽

Catherine H. Graham ◽

Sébastien Lavergne ◽

Loïc Pellissier ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Molecular Phylogeny ◽

Plant Species ◽

Phylogenetic Diversity ◽

Taxonomic Diversity ◽

Land Use Intensity ◽

Species Dominance ◽

High Productivity ◽

External Constraints ◽

Species Similarity

AbstractUnderstanding the processes that drive the dramatic changes in biodiversity along the productivity gradient remains a major challenge. Insight from simple, bivariate relationships so far has been limited. We combined >11,000 community plots in the French Alps with a molecular phylogeny and trait information for >1200 plant species to simultaneously investigate the relationships between all major biodiversity dimensions and satellite-sensed productivity. Using an approach that tests for differential effects of species dominance, species similarity and the interplay between phylogeny and traits, we demonstrate that unimodal productivity–biodiversity relationships only dominate for taxonomic diversity. In forests, trait and phylogenetic diversity typically increase with productivity, while in grasslands, relationships shift from unimodal to declining with greater land-use intensity. High productivity may increase trait/phylogenetic diversity in ecosystems with few external constraints (forests) by promoting complementary strategies, but under external constraints (managed grasslands) successful strategies are similar and thus the best competitors may be selected.

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Plant-Pollinator Networks in Savannas of Burkina Faso, West Africa

Diversity ◽

10.3390/d13010001 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 13 (1) ◽

pp. 1

Author(s):

Katharina Stein ◽

Drissa Coulibaly ◽

Larba Hubert Balima ◽

Dethardt Goetze ◽

Karl Eduard Linsenmair ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Species Richness ◽

West Africa ◽

Plant Species ◽

Rainy Season ◽

Network Architecture ◽

Woody Plant ◽

Null Model ◽

Land Use Intensity ◽

Woody Plant Species

West African savannas are severely threatened with intensified land use and increasing degradation. Bees are important for terrestrial biodiversity as they provide native plant species with pollination services. However, little information is available regarding their mutualistic interactions with woody plant species. In the first network study from sub-Saharan West Africa, we investigated the effects of land-use intensity and climatic seasonality on plant–bee communities and their interaction networks. In total, we recorded 5686 interactions between 53 flowering woody plant species and 100 bee species. Bee-species richness and the number of interactions were higher in the low compared to medium and high land-use intensity sites. Bee- and plant-species richness and the number of interactions were higher in the dry compared to the rainy season. Plant–bee visitation networks were not strongly affected by land-use intensity; however, climatic seasonality had a strong effect on network architecture. Null-model corrected connectance and nestedness were higher in the dry compared to the rainy season. In addition, network specialization and null-model corrected modularity were lower in the dry compared to the rainy season. Our results suggest that in our study region, seasonal effects on mutualistic network architecture are more pronounced compared to land-use change effects. Nonetheless, the decrease in bee-species richness and the number of plant–bee interactions with an increase in land-use intensity highlights the importance of savanna conservation for maintaining bee diversity and the concomitant provision of ecosystem services.

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