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Effects of Traditional Flood Irrigation on Invertebrates in Lowland Meadows
Lowland meadow irrigation used to be widespread in Central Europe, but has largely been abandoned during the 20(th) century. As a result of agri-environment schemes and nature conservation efforts, meadow irrigation is now being re-established in some European regions. In the absence of natural floo...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2014
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4207796/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25340872 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0110854 |
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author | Schirmel, Jens Alt, Martin Rudolph, Isabell Entling, Martin H. |
author_facet | Schirmel, Jens Alt, Martin Rudolph, Isabell Entling, Martin H. |
author_sort | Schirmel, Jens |
collection | PubMed |
description | Lowland meadow irrigation used to be widespread in Central Europe, but has largely been abandoned during the 20(th) century. As a result of agri-environment schemes and nature conservation efforts, meadow irrigation is now being re-established in some European regions. In the absence of natural flood events, irrigation is expected to favour fauna typical of lowland wet meadows. We analysed the effects of traditional flood irrigation on diversity, densities and species composition of three invertebrate indicator taxa in lowland meadows in Germany. Unexpectedly, alpha diversity (species richness and Simpson diversity) and beta diversity (multivariate homogeneity of group dispersions) of orthopterans, carabids, and spiders were not significantly different between irrigated and non-irrigated meadows. However, spider densities were significantly higher in irrigated meadows. Furthermore, irrigation and elevated humidity affected species composition and shifted assemblages towards moisture-dependent species. The number of species of conservation concern, however, did not differ between irrigated and non-irrigated meadows. More variable and intensive (higher duration and/or frequency) flooding regimes might provide stronger conservation benefits, additional species and enhance habitat heterogeneity on a landscape scale. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4207796 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2014 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-42077962014-10-27 Effects of Traditional Flood Irrigation on Invertebrates in Lowland Meadows Schirmel, Jens Alt, Martin Rudolph, Isabell Entling, Martin H. PLoS One Research Article Lowland meadow irrigation used to be widespread in Central Europe, but has largely been abandoned during the 20(th) century. As a result of agri-environment schemes and nature conservation efforts, meadow irrigation is now being re-established in some European regions. In the absence of natural flood events, irrigation is expected to favour fauna typical of lowland wet meadows. We analysed the effects of traditional flood irrigation on diversity, densities and species composition of three invertebrate indicator taxa in lowland meadows in Germany. Unexpectedly, alpha diversity (species richness and Simpson diversity) and beta diversity (multivariate homogeneity of group dispersions) of orthopterans, carabids, and spiders were not significantly different between irrigated and non-irrigated meadows. However, spider densities were significantly higher in irrigated meadows. Furthermore, irrigation and elevated humidity affected species composition and shifted assemblages towards moisture-dependent species. The number of species of conservation concern, however, did not differ between irrigated and non-irrigated meadows. More variable and intensive (higher duration and/or frequency) flooding regimes might provide stronger conservation benefits, additional species and enhance habitat heterogeneity on a landscape scale. Public Library of Science 2014-10-23 /pmc/articles/PMC4207796/ /pubmed/25340872 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0110854 Text en © 2014 Schirmel et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Schirmel, Jens Alt, Martin Rudolph, Isabell Entling, Martin H. Effects of Traditional Flood Irrigation on Invertebrates in Lowland Meadows |
title | Effects of Traditional Flood Irrigation on Invertebrates in Lowland Meadows |
title_full | Effects of Traditional Flood Irrigation on Invertebrates in Lowland Meadows |
title_fullStr | Effects of Traditional Flood Irrigation on Invertebrates in Lowland Meadows |
title_full_unstemmed | Effects of Traditional Flood Irrigation on Invertebrates in Lowland Meadows |
title_short | Effects of Traditional Flood Irrigation on Invertebrates in Lowland Meadows |
title_sort | effects of traditional flood irrigation on invertebrates in lowland meadows |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4207796/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25340872 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0110854 |
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