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Habitat Structure, Quality and Landscape Predict Species Richness and Communities of Collembola in Dry Grasslands in Austria

We assessed the relationships between site size, habitat quality, landscape factors (fragmentation, landscape diversity) and species richness in communities of Collembola in 50 small dry grassland habitat patches in an agricultural landscape of eastern Austria. Grasslands in that region were once wi...

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Autores principales: Querner, Pascal, Milasowszky, Norbert, Zulka, Klaus Peter, Abensperg-Traun, Max, Willner, Wolfgang, Sauberer, Norbert, Jakomini, Christine, Wrbka, Thomas, Schmitzberger, Ingrid, Zechmeister, Harald G.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6163862/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29986522
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/insects9030081
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author Querner, Pascal
Milasowszky, Norbert
Zulka, Klaus Peter
Abensperg-Traun, Max
Willner, Wolfgang
Sauberer, Norbert
Jakomini, Christine
Wrbka, Thomas
Schmitzberger, Ingrid
Zechmeister, Harald G.
author_facet Querner, Pascal
Milasowszky, Norbert
Zulka, Klaus Peter
Abensperg-Traun, Max
Willner, Wolfgang
Sauberer, Norbert
Jakomini, Christine
Wrbka, Thomas
Schmitzberger, Ingrid
Zechmeister, Harald G.
author_sort Querner, Pascal
collection PubMed
description We assessed the relationships between site size, habitat quality, landscape factors (fragmentation, landscape diversity) and species richness in communities of Collembola in 50 small dry grassland habitat patches in an agricultural landscape of eastern Austria. Grasslands in that region were once widespread and extensive, but have become increasingly fragmented and isolated. We hypothesized that dry grassland springtails species richness is significantly correlated with site variables (soil properties, habitat quality) and that the size of grassland sites is positively correlated with species richness. We used pitfall traps in 50 dry grasslands in differently structured agricultural landscapes and tested total abundance and three species richness measures: (1) the number of dry grassland specialist species; (2) total number of dry grassland species and (3) overall species richness. In the multivariate correlation models, we found that all species richness measures were significantly related to the plant species richness, a shape parameter of the sites, soil properties such as humus, temperature, sand and gravel content and the landscape variable reflecting isolation (distance to the nearest large dry grassland area). This landscape variable indicates that neighbouring grasslands are influencing the species richness of the sites. This may be a result of passive wind dispersal across the landscape or historic connection of the small sites with much larger dry grasslands. The size of the site did not show any significant correlation with total, dry grassland specialist, dry grassland generalist or generalist species richness. The small size of Collembola might explain these findings, because they have high population densities even in small patches.
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spelling pubmed-61638622018-10-10 Habitat Structure, Quality and Landscape Predict Species Richness and Communities of Collembola in Dry Grasslands in Austria Querner, Pascal Milasowszky, Norbert Zulka, Klaus Peter Abensperg-Traun, Max Willner, Wolfgang Sauberer, Norbert Jakomini, Christine Wrbka, Thomas Schmitzberger, Ingrid Zechmeister, Harald G. Insects Article We assessed the relationships between site size, habitat quality, landscape factors (fragmentation, landscape diversity) and species richness in communities of Collembola in 50 small dry grassland habitat patches in an agricultural landscape of eastern Austria. Grasslands in that region were once widespread and extensive, but have become increasingly fragmented and isolated. We hypothesized that dry grassland springtails species richness is significantly correlated with site variables (soil properties, habitat quality) and that the size of grassland sites is positively correlated with species richness. We used pitfall traps in 50 dry grasslands in differently structured agricultural landscapes and tested total abundance and three species richness measures: (1) the number of dry grassland specialist species; (2) total number of dry grassland species and (3) overall species richness. In the multivariate correlation models, we found that all species richness measures were significantly related to the plant species richness, a shape parameter of the sites, soil properties such as humus, temperature, sand and gravel content and the landscape variable reflecting isolation (distance to the nearest large dry grassland area). This landscape variable indicates that neighbouring grasslands are influencing the species richness of the sites. This may be a result of passive wind dispersal across the landscape or historic connection of the small sites with much larger dry grasslands. The size of the site did not show any significant correlation with total, dry grassland specialist, dry grassland generalist or generalist species richness. The small size of Collembola might explain these findings, because they have high population densities even in small patches. MDPI 2018-07-07 /pmc/articles/PMC6163862/ /pubmed/29986522 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/insects9030081 Text en © 2018 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Querner, Pascal
Milasowszky, Norbert
Zulka, Klaus Peter
Abensperg-Traun, Max
Willner, Wolfgang
Sauberer, Norbert
Jakomini, Christine
Wrbka, Thomas
Schmitzberger, Ingrid
Zechmeister, Harald G.
Habitat Structure, Quality and Landscape Predict Species Richness and Communities of Collembola in Dry Grasslands in Austria
title Habitat Structure, Quality and Landscape Predict Species Richness and Communities of Collembola in Dry Grasslands in Austria
title_full Habitat Structure, Quality and Landscape Predict Species Richness and Communities of Collembola in Dry Grasslands in Austria
title_fullStr Habitat Structure, Quality and Landscape Predict Species Richness and Communities of Collembola in Dry Grasslands in Austria
title_full_unstemmed Habitat Structure, Quality and Landscape Predict Species Richness and Communities of Collembola in Dry Grasslands in Austria
title_short Habitat Structure, Quality and Landscape Predict Species Richness and Communities of Collembola in Dry Grasslands in Austria
title_sort habitat structure, quality and landscape predict species richness and communities of collembola in dry grasslands in austria
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6163862/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29986522
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/insects9030081
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