Habitat area trumps fragmentation effects on arthropods in an experimental landscape system |
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Authors: | Kimberly A With Daniel M Pavuk |
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Institution: | (1) Division of Biology, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS 66506, USA;(2) Department of Biological Sciences, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH 43403, USA |
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Abstract: | The effects of habitat area and fragmentation are confounded in many studies. Since a reduction in habitat area alone reduces
patch size and increases patch isolation, many studies reporting fragmentation effects may really be documenting habitat-area
effects. We designed an experimental landscape system in the field, founded on fractal neutral landscape models, to study
arthropod community responses to clover habitat in which we adjusted the level of fragmentation independently of habitat area.
Overall, habitat area had a greater and more consistent effect on morphospecies richness than fragmentation. Morphospecies
richness doubled between 10 and 80% habitat, with the greatest increase occurring up to 40% habitat. Fragmentation had a more
subtle and transient effect, exhibiting an interaction at intermediate levels of habitat only at the start of the study or
in the early-season (June) survey. In these early surveys, morphospecies richness was higher in clumped 40–50% landscapes
but higher in fragmented landscapes at 60–80% habitat. Rare or uncommon species are expected to be most sensitive to fragmentation
effects, and we found a significant interaction with fragmentation at intermediate levels of habitat for these types of morphospecies
in early surveys. Although the effects of fragmentation are expected to amplify at higher trophic levels, all trophic levels
exhibited a significant fragmentation effect at intermediate levels of habitat in these early surveys. Predators/parasitoids
were more sensitive to habitat area than herbivores, however. Thus, our results confirm that habitat area is more important
than fragmentation for predicting arthropod community responses, at least in this agricultural system. |
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