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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...

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Autores principales: Schirmel, Jens, Alt, Martin, Rudolph, Isabell, Entling, Martin H.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2014
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.
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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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