TY  - JOUR
A1  - Holzschuh, Andrea
A1  - Dainese, Matteo
A1  - Gonzalez-Varo, Juan P.
A1  - Mudri-Stojnic, Sonja
A1  - Riedinger, Verena
A1  - Rundlöf, Maj
A1  - Scheper, Jeroen
A1  - Wickens, Jennifer B.
A1  - Wickens, Victoria J.
A1  - Bommarco, Riccardo
A1  - Kleijn, David
A1  - Potts, Simon G.
A1  - Roberts, Stuart P. M.
A1  - Smith, Henrik G.
A1  - Vilà, Montserrat
A1  - Vujic, Ante
A1  - Steffan-Dewenter, Ingolf
T1  - Mass-flowering crops dilute pollinator abundance in agricultural landscapes across Europe
JF  - Ecology Letters
N2  - Mass-flowering crops (MFCs) are increasingly cultivated and might influence pollinator communities in MFC fields and nearby semi-natural habitats (SNHs). Across six European regions and 2 years, we assessed how landscape-scale cover of MFCs affected pollinator densities in 408 MFC fields and adjacent SNHs. In MFC fields, densities of bumblebees, solitary bees, managed honeybees and hoverflies were negatively related to the cover of MFCs in the landscape. In SNHs, densities of bumblebees declined with increasing cover of MFCs but densities of honeybees increased. The densities of all pollinators were generally unrelated to the cover of SNHs in the landscape. Although MFC fields apparently attracted pollinators from SNHs, in landscapes with large areas of MFCs they became diluted. The resulting lower densities might negatively affect yields of pollinator- dependent crops and the reproductive success of wild plants. An expansion of MFCs needs to be accompanied by pollinator-supporting practices in agricultural landscapes.
KW  - wild plant pollination
KW  - Colony growth
KW  - Densities
KW  - Context
KW  - crop pollination
KW  - Oilseed rape
KW  - Nesting resources
KW  - Bee abundance
KW  - Yield
KW  - Richness
KW  - Habitats
KW  - Agricultural intensification
KW  - agri-environment schemes
KW  - biofuels
KW  - ecosystem services
KW  - field boundaries
KW  - landscape compositionv
KW  - non-crop habitats
KW  - semi-natural habitats
KW  - spillover
Y1  - 2016
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-187356
VL  - 19
IS  - 10
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Bonte, Dries
A1  - Lanckacker, Kjell
A1  - Wiersma, Elisabeth
A1  - Lens, Luc
T1  - Web building flexibility of an orb-web spider in a heterogeneous agricultural landscape
N2  - Abstract: Intensification of land-use in agricultural landscapes is responsible for a decline of biodiversity which provide important ecosystem services like pest-control. Changes in landscape composition may also induce behavioural changes of predators in response to variation in the biotic or abiotic environment. By controlling for environmentally confounding factors, we here demonstrate that the orb web spider Araneus diadematus alters its web building behaviour in response to changes in the composition of agricultural landscapes. Thereby, the species increases its foraging efficiency (i.e. investments in silk and web asymmetry) with an increase of agricultural land-use at intermediate spatial scales. This intensification is also related to a decrease in the abundance of larger prey. A negative effect of landscape properties at similar spatial scales on spider fitness was recorded when controlling for relative investments in capture thread length. This study consequently documents the web building flexibility in response to changes in landscape composition, possibly due to changes in prey availability.
KW  - Araneus diadematus
KW  - Araneidae
KW  - behavioural flexibility
KW  - orb web geometry
KW  - landscape
KW  - model selection
KW  - semi-natural habitats
Y1  - 2008
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-48262
ER  -