TY  - JOUR
A1  - Gámez-Virués, Sagrario
A1  - Perović, David J.
A1  - Gossner, Martin M.
A1  - Börschig, Carmen
A1  - Blüthgen, Nico
A1  - de Jong, Heike
A1  - Simons, Nadja K.
A1  - Klein, Alexandra-Maria
A1  - Krauss, Jochen
A1  - Maier, Gwen
A1  - Scherber, Christoph
A1  - Steckel, Juliane
A1  - Rothenwöhrer, Christoph
A1  - Steffan-Dewenter, Ingolf
A1  - Weiner, Christiane N.
A1  - Weisser, Wolfgang
A1  - Werner, Michael
A1  - Tscharntke, Teja
A1  - Westphal, Catrin
T1  - Landscape simplification filters species traits and drives biotic homogenization
JF  - Nature Communications
N2  - Biodiversity loss can affect the viability of ecosystems by decreasing the ability of communities to respond to environmental change and disturbances. Agricultural intensification is a major driver of biodiversity loss and has multiple components operating at different spatial scales: from in-field management intensity to landscape-scale simplification. Here we show that landscape-level effects dominate functional community composition and can even buffer the effects of in-field management intensification on functional homogenization, and that animal communities in real-world managed landscapes show a unified response (across orders and guilds) to both landscape-scale simplification and in-field intensification. Adults and larvae with specialized feeding habits, species with shorter activity periods and relatively small body sizes are selected against in simplified landscapes with intense in-field management. Our results demonstrate that the diversity of land cover types at the landscape scale is critical for maintaining communities, which are functionally diverse, even in landscapes where in-field management intensity is high.
KW  - land-use intensity
KW  - community functional-responses
KW  - body-size
KW  - agricultural intensification
KW  - sustainable intensification
KW  - managed grasslands
KW  - biodiversity
KW  - diversity
KW  - heterogenity
KW  - butterflies
Y1  - 2015
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-141925
VL  - 6
IS  - 8568
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Joschinski, Jens
A1  - Hovestadt, Thomas
A1  - Krauss, Jochen
T1  - Coping with shorter days: do phenology shifts constrain aphid fitness?
JF  - PeerJ
N2  - Climate change can alter the phenology of organisms. It may thus lead seasonal organisms to face different day lengths than in the past, and the fitness consequences of these changes are as yet unclear. To study such effects, we used the pea aphid Acyrthosiphon pisum as a model organism, as it has obligately asexual clones which can be used to study day length effects without eliciting a seasonal response. We recorded life-history traits under short and long days, both with two realistic temperature cycles with means differing by 2 °C. In addition, we measured the population growth of aphids on their host plant Pisum sativum. We show that short days reduce fecundity and the length of the reproductive period of aphids. Nevertheless, this does not translate into differences at the population level because the observed fitness costs only become apparent late in the individual's life. As expected, warm temperature shortens the development time by 0.7 days/°C, leading to faster generation times. We found no interaction of temperature and day length. We conclude that day length changes cause only relatively mild costs, which may not decelerate the increase in pest status due to climate change.
KW  - Homoptera aphididae
KW  - clock reproduction ecology
KW  - phenotypic plasticity
KW  - phenology shifts
KW  - insect timing
KW  - physiological constraints
KW  - day length
KW  - circadian rhythms
KW  - Acyrthosiphon pisum
KW  - climate change
Y1  - 2015
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-148382
VL  - 3
IS  - e1103
ER  -