Local diversity of arable weeds increases with landscape complexity

By Doreen Gabriel, Carsten Thies, T. Tscharntke. 2005

207 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract Patterns of plant diversity are often related to local site conditions and to competitive interactions, but landscape context may also be important for local plant species richness. This is shown here by analysing the relationship between landscape complexity and local species richness of arable weeds in wheat fields. The fields were located in 18 landscapes characterised by a gradient in landscape complexity from structurally complex to structurally simple (39–94% arable land). We quantified local site conditions, field management intensity and landscape characteristics, and used principle component analyses to ordinate the environmental variables. The percentage of arable land was negatively correlated with perimeter–area ratio, habitat-type diversity and topographical heterogeneity, but landscape characteristics did not correlate with local site conditions and field management intensity. The number of plant species was mainly related to landscape characteristics and to a lesser extent to field management intensity (nitrogen fertilisation), whereas local soil characteristics did not contribute to the explanation of arable weed richness. In a geographic scale analysis using circular landscape sectors ranging from 1 km up to 5 km diameter, the predictive power of landscape complexity for local plant species richness was strongest at 2 km indicating a scale-dependent relationship between landscape context and plant species richness. Our results support the hypothesis that local plant species richness in arable fields is greatly influenced by processes operating at the landscape scale. Seed rain from ruderal source habitats and disturbed edges may be the most important underlying process.

Subfields: Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Nature and Landscape Conservation, Plant Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/32d7a3731277493201dce7b7a311780a8e8df5c2

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In Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

In Nature and Landscape Conservation

In Plant Science

Citations in the corpus

Set-aside management: How do succession, sowing patterns and landscape context affect biodiversity? (2011, background): “Set-aside in species-poor agricultural landscapes can be dominated by very abundant weeds instead of a diverse arable weed community (Denys and Tscharntke, 2002; Gabriel et al., 2005).”
Response and effect traits of arable weeds in agro‐ecosystems: a review of current knowledge (2017, background): “Several studies have highlighted the importance of landscape structure and composition on weed species assembly (Gabriel et al., 2005; Gaba et al., 2010).”
Ecological impacts of early 21st century agricultural change in Europe--a review. (2009, background): “Similarly, diversity of arable plants is positively linked to landscape complexity (Gabriel et al., 2005; Kovács et al., 2007a).”
Small mammals in agricultural landscapes: Opposing responses to farming practices and landscape complexity (2011, unknown): “, 2007) and plants (Gabriel et al., 2005; Roschewitz et al., 2005).”
Does organic farming reduce environmental impacts?--a meta-analysis of European research. (2012, background): “The main reason for the loss of rural biodiversity during the last decades has been the change in agricultural landscapes (Gabriel et al., 2005; Luoto et al., 2003; Macdonald et al., 2000; Macdonald and Smith, 1991).”
Insect pollinated plants benefit from organic farming (2007, background): “Diversity and community structure of arable weeds is affected by many other important factors such as local site characteristics, farming intensity, and landscape context (Dale et al., 1992; Andersson and Milberg, 1998; Hyvönen and Salonen, 2002; Gabriel et al., 2005).”
Factors and processes affecting plant biodiversity in permanent grasslands. A review (2011, unknown): “Therefore, high landscape heterogeneity in a given landscape might be expected to enhance colonization probability (Gabriel et al. 2005).”
Weed-insect pollinator networks as bio-indicators of ecological sustainability in agriculture. A review (2016, background): “Landscape complexity increases with percentage of nonarable lands in the landscape (Gabriel et al. 2005).”