TY  - JOUR
A1  - Njovu, Henry K.
A1  - Steffan-Dewenter, Ingolf
A1  - Gebert, Friederike
A1  - Schellenberger Costa, David
A1  - Kleyer, Michael
A1  - Wagner, Thomas
A1  - Peters, Marcell K.
T1  - Plant traits mediate the effects of climate on phytophagous beetle diversity on Mt. Kilimanjaro
JF  - Ecology
N2  - Patterns of insect diversity along elevational gradients are well described in ecology. However, it remains little tested how variation in the quantity, quality, and diversity of food resources influence these patterns. Here we analyzed the direct and indirect effects of climate, food quantity (estimated by net primary productivity), quality (variation in the specific leaf area index, leaf nitrogen to phosphorus and leaf carbon to nitrogen ratio), and food diversity (diversity of leaf traits) on the species richness of phytophagous beetles along the broad elevation and land use gradients of Mt. Kilimanjaro, Tanzania. We sampled beetles at 65 study sites located in both natural and anthropogenic habitats, ranging from 866 to 4,550 m asl. We used path analysis to unravel the direct and indirect effects of predictor variables on species richness. In total, 3,154 phytophagous beetles representing 19 families and 304 morphospecies were collected. We found that the species richness of phytophagous beetles was bimodally distributed along the elevation gradient with peaks at the lowest (˜866 m asl) and upper mid-elevations (˜3,200 m asl) and sharply declined at higher elevations. Path analysis revealed temperature- and climate-driven changes in primary productivity and leaf trait diversity to be the best predictors of changes in the species richness of phytophagous beetles. Species richness increased with increases in mean annual temperature, primary productivity, and with increases in the diversity of leaf traits of local ecosystems. Our study demonstrates that, apart from temperature, the quantity and diversity of food resources play a major role in shaping diversity gradients of phytophagous insects. Drivers of global change, leading to a change of leaf traits and causing reductions in plant diversity and productivity, may consequently reduce the diversity of herbivore assemblages.
KW  - plant functional traits
KW  - altitudinal gradient
KW  - Chrysomelidae
KW  - Curculionidae
KW  - diversity gradients
KW  - elevation gradient
KW  - functional diversity
KW  - herbivorous beetles
KW  - herbivory
KW  - more-individuals hypothesis
KW  - phytophagous beetles
Y1  - 2021
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-257343
VL  - 102
IS  - 12
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Peters, Marcell K.
A1  - Hemp, Andreas
A1  - Appelhans, Tim
A1  - Behler, Christina
A1  - Classen, Alice
A1  - Detsch, Florian
A1  - Ensslin, Andreas
A1  - Ferger, Stefan W.
A1  - Frederiksen, Sara B.
A1  - Gebert, Frederike
A1  - Haas, Michael
A1  - Helbig-Bonitz, Maria
A1  - Hemp, Claudia
A1  - Kindeketa, William J.
A1  - Mwangomo, Ephraim
A1  - Ngereza, Christine
A1  - Otte, Insa
A1  - Röder, Juliane
A1  - Rutten, Gemma
A1  - Costa, David Schellenberger
A1  - Tardanico, Joseph
A1  - Zancolli, Giulia
A1  - Deckert, Jürgen
A1  - Eardley, Connal D.
A1  - Peters, Ralph S.
A1  - Rödel, Mark-Oliver
A1  - Schleuning, Matthias
A1  - Ssymank, Axel
A1  - Kakengi, Victor
A1  - Zhang, Jie
A1  - Böhning-Gaese, Katrin
A1  - Brandl, Roland
A1  - Kalko, Elisabeth K.V.
A1  - Kleyer, Michael
A1  - Nauss, Thomas
A1  - Tschapka, Marco
A1  - Fischer, Markus
A1  - Steffan-Dewenter, Ingolf
T1  - Predictors of elevational biodiversity gradients change from single taxa to the multi-taxa community level
JF  - Nature Communications
N2  - The factors determining gradients of biodiversity are a fundamental yet unresolved topic in ecology. While diversity gradients have been analysed for numerous single taxa, progress towards general explanatory models has been hampered by limitations in the phylogenetic coverage of past studies. By parallel sampling of 25 major plant and animal taxa along a 3.7 km elevational gradient on Mt. Kilimanjaro, we quantify cross-taxon consensus in diversity gradients and evaluate predictors of diversity from single taxa to a multi-taxa community level. While single taxa show complex distribution patterns and respond to different environmental factors, scaling up diversity to the community level leads to an unambiguous support for temperature as the main predictor of species richness in both plants and animals. Our findings illuminate the influence of taxonomic coverage for models of diversity gradients and point to the importance of temperature for diversification and species coexistence in plant and animal communities.
KW  - community ecology
KW  - macroecology
KW  - tropical ecology
KW  - biodiversity
Y1  - 2016
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-169374
VL  - 7
ER  -