A summary of eight traits of Coleoptera, Hemiptera, Orthoptera and Araneae, occurring in grasslands in Germany

There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

Abstract

Analyses of species traits have increased our understanding of how environmental drivers such as disturbances affect the composition of arthropod communities and related processes. There are, however, few studies on which traits in the arthropod community are affected by environmental changes and which traits affect ecosystem functioning. The assembly of arthropod traits of several taxa is difficult because of the large number of species, limited availability of trait databases and differences in available traits. We sampled arthropod species data from a total of 150 managed grassland plots in three regions of Germany. These plots represent the spectrum from extensively used pastures to mown pastures to intensively managed and fertilized meadows. In this paper, we summarize information on body size, dispersal ability, feeding guild and specialization (within herbivores), feeding mode, feeding tissue (within herbivorous suckers), plant part (within herbivorous chewers), endophagous lifestyle (within herbivores), and vertical stratum use for 1,230 species of Coleoptera, Hemiptera (Heteroptera, Auchenorrhyncha), Orthoptera (Saltatoria: Ensifera, Caelifera), and Araneae, sampled by sweep-netting between 2008 and 2012. We compiled traits from various literature sources and complemented data from reliable internet sources and the authors’ experience.

Related collections

Most cited references 6

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Progress in invasion biology: predicting invaders.

Sahana S. Kolar, D. L. Lodge (2001)

Predicting which species are probable invaders has been a long-standing goal of ecologists, but only recently have quantitative methods been used to achieve such a goal. Although restricted to few taxa, these studies reveal clear relationships between the characteristics of releases and the species involved, and the successful establishment and spread of invaders. For example, the probability of bird establishment increases with the number of individuals released and the number of release events. Also, the probability of plant invasiveness increases if the species has a history of invasion and reproduces vegetatively. These promising quantitative approaches should be more widely applied to allow us to predict patterns of invading species more successfully.

0 comments Cited 133 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Conventional functional classification schemes underestimate the relationship with ecosystem functioning.

Justin Wright, Shahid Naeem, Andy Hector … (2006)

Studies linking the functional diversity of a biota to ecosystem functioning typically employ a priori classifications of species into hypothetically complementary groups. However, multiple alternate classifications exist in which the number of functional groups, the number of species per functional group, and the grouping of species differ from the a priori scheme. Without assessing the relative precision, or ability of an a priori scheme to accurately predict ecosystem functioning relative to its many alternatives, the validity and utility of analyses based on a single a priori classification scheme remains unclear. We examine the precision of a priori classifications used in 10 experimental grassland systems in Europe and the United States that have found evidence for a significant role of functional plant diversity in governing ecosystem function. The predictive precision of the a priori classifications employed in these studies was seldom significantly higher than the precision of random classifications. Post-hoc classification schemes that performed well in predicting ecosystem function resembled each other more with regard to species composition than average classifications, but there was still considerable variability in the manner in which these classification schemes grouped species. These results suggest that we need a more nuanced understanding of how the diversity of functional traits of species in an assemblage affects ecosystem functioning.

0 comments Cited 82 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

How can alien species inventories and interception data help us prevent insect invasions?

Jonathan A. C. Roques, M. Rozenberg, W Rabitsch … (2007)

Information relevant to invasion processes and invasive alien insect species management in Central Europe was extracted from two databases: a compilation of two inventories of alien insects in Austria and Switzerland, and a list of interceptions of non-indigenous plant pests in Europe gathered by the European and Mediterranean Plant Protection Organisation (EPPO) for the period 1995-2004. For one-third of the insects established in Switzerland and Austria, the region of origin is unclear. Others come mainly from North America, Asia and the Mediterranean region. Among the intercepted insects, 40% were associated with commodities from Asia, 32% from Europe and only 2% from North America. Sternorrhyncha, Coleoptera and Psocoptera were particularly well represented in the alien fauna compared to the native fauna. In the interception database, Sternorrhyncha were also well represented but Diptera accounted for the highest number of records. Sap feeders and detritivores were the dominant feeding niches in the alien insect fauna. In contrast, external defoliators, stem borers, gall makers, root feeders, predators and parasitoids were underrepresented. Nearly 40% of the alien insects in Switzerland and Austria live only indoors. Another 15% live outdoors but exclusively or predominantly on exotic plants. Less than 20% are found mainly in 'natural' environments. The majority of introductions of alien insects in Europe are associated with the international trade in ornamental plants. An economic impact was found for 40% of the alien insects in Switzerland and Austria, whereas none is known to have an ecological impact. The implications of these observations for further studies and the management of alien species in Europe are discussed.

0 comments Cited 71 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

All references

Author and article information

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): Sci Data

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): Sci Data

Title: Scientific Data

Publisher: Nature Publishing Group

ISSN (Electronic): 2052-4463

Publication date (Electronic): 31 March 2015

Publication date Collection: 2015

Volume: 2

Electronic Location Identifier: 150013

Affiliations

[1 ] Terrestrial Ecology Research Group, Department of Ecology and Ecosystem Management, Center for Life and Food Sciences Weihenstephan, Technische Universität München , Hans-Carl-von-Carlowitz-Platz 2, D-85354 Freising, Germany

[2 ] TU Bergakademie Freiberg, Institute for Biosciences, Biology & Ecology Unit , Leipziger Straße 29, D-09599 Freiberg, Germany

[3 ] Callistus—Gemeinschaft für Zoologische & Ökologische Untersuchungen , Heidloh 8, D-95503 Hummeltal, Germany

[4 ] Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum , Senckenberganlage 25, D-60325 Frankfurt am Main, Germany

[5 ] Faculty of Agriculture/Landscape Management, HTW Dresden University of Applied Sciences , Pillnitzer Platz 2, D-01326 Dresden, Germany

[6 ] Strombergstr. 22a , D-53332 Bornheim, Germany

[7 ] Environment Agency Austria, Dept. Biodiversity & Nature Conservation , Spittelauer Lände 5, A-1090 Vienna, Austria

Author notes

[a ] M.M.G. (email: martin.gossner@ 123456tum.de )

[]

M.M.G. conceived the idea for the manuscript, defined the final outline of the manuscript, wrote the first manuscript draft, collected trait information, and provided a trait database of Heteroptera. N.K.S. conceived the idea for the manuscript, collected trait information, and commented on all manuscript versions. R.A. provided a trait database of Auchenorrhyncha and commented on the manuscript. T.B. provided a trait database of Araneae and commented on the manuscript W.H.O.D. provided a trait database of Heteroptera and commented on the manuscript. F.D. provided a trait database of Orthoptera and commented on the manuscript. F.K. provided a trait database of Coleoptera. W.R. provided a trait database of Heteroptera and commented on the manuscript. W.W.W. conceived the idea for the manuscript and commented on all manuscript versions.

Article

Publisher Item ID: sdata201513

DOI: 10.1038/sdata.2015.13

PMC ID: 4413242

PubMed ID: 25977817

SO-VID: dc9df7fe-b756-413f-b803-90717b21e83e

License:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 Metadata associated with this Data Descriptor is available at http://www.nature.com/sdata/ and is released under the CC0 waiver to maximize reuse.

A summary of eight traits of Coleoptera, Hemiptera, Orthoptera and Araneae, occurring in grasslands in Germany

Read this article at

Abstract

Related collections

Coleoptera

Most cited references 6

Progress in invasion biology: predicting invaders.

Conventional functional classification schemes underestimate the relationship with ecosystem functioning.

How can alien species inventories and interception data help us prevent insect invasions?

Author and article information

Journal

Affiliations

Author notes

Article

History

Categories

Comments

Comment on this article

Similar content 50

Cited by 14

Most referenced authors 101