Disentangling direct and indirect effects of experimental grassland management and plant functional-group manipulation on plant and leafhopper diversity

Annals of Occupational and Environmental Medicine

Georg Everwand¹  Verena Rösch¹  Teja Tscharntke¹  Christoph Scherber¹ 

[1] Department of Crop Science, Agroecology, Georg-August-University, Grisebachstrasse 6, 37077 Göttingen, Germany

关键词: Removal experiment;    Biodiversity experiment;    Graminoid;    Forb;    Plant species composition;    Mowing;    Management intensity;    Auchenorrhyncha;   

Others  :  1084864
DOI  :  10.1186/1472-6785-14-1

 received in 2014-01-15, accepted in 2014-01-16,  发布年份 2014

【 摘 要 】

Background

Plant biodiversity can affect trophic interactions in many ways, including direct bottom-up effects on insects, but is negatively affected by agricultural intensification. Grassland intensification promotes plant productivity, resulting in changes in plant community composition, and impacts on higher trophic levels. Here, we use a novel grassland management experiment combining manipulations of cutting and fertilization with experimental changes in plant functional group composition (independent of management effects) to disentangle the direct and indirect effects of agricultural management on insect herbivore diversity and abundance. We used leafhoppers as model organisms as they are a key insect taxon in grasslands and react rapidly to management changes. Leafhoppers were sampled between May and September 2010 using standardized sweep netting and pan traps.

Results

Plant diversity, functional group composition and management regime in grasslands affected leafhopper species richness and abundance. Higher cutting frequencies directly led to decreasing leafhopper species richness, presumably due to the higher disturbance frequency and the reduction in food-resource heterogeneity. In contrast, fertilizer application had only a small indirect negative effect via enhanced aboveground plant biomass, reduced plant diversity and changes in functional group composition. The manipulated increase in grass cover had contrasting direct and indirect effects on leafhopper species richness: grass cover directly increased leafhopper species richness, but negatively affected plant diversity, which in turn was positively related to leafhopper species richness. In conclusion, insect diversity is driven in complex direct and indirect ways by grassland management, including changes in functional group composition.

Conclusions

The availability of preferred food sources and the frequency of disturbance are important direct and indirect drivers of leafhopper species richness, interacting in complex ways with plant diversity and food resource heterogeneity.

【 授权许可】

   
2014 Everwand et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

【 图 表 】

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