Characteristics of insect populations on habitat fragments: A mini review

By T. Tscharntke, I. Steffan‐Dewenter, A. Kruess, Carsten Thies. Ecological research, 2002

488 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Modern human-dominated landscapes are typically characterized by intensive land-use and high levels of habitat destruction, often resulting in sharply contrasted habitat mosaics. Fragmentation of remaining habitat is a major threat to biodiversity. In the present paper, we focus on the different features of habitat fragmentation. First we discuss the importance of pure habitat loss, fragment size, fragment isolation and quality, edge effects, and the importance of landscape structure. Second, we characterize life-history features of fragmentation-sensitive species, showing that rare, specialized, little dispersing species are most affected, as well as species characterized by high population variability and a high trophic position, while the effect of body size is unclear. Third, we discuss the conservation value of habitat fragments. The question arises how to relate studies on population survival to those of community structure and studies on biodiversity to those on ecologicalal functions. Despite the general superiority of large to small reserves, only small or medium-sized reserves are available in many human-dominated landscapes. A great number of small habitats covering a wide range of geographic area should maximize beta diversity and spreading of risk and may be very important for the regional conservation of biodiversity, in contrast to the prevailing arguments in favor of large habitats. Finally, landscape context influences community structure of fragments, and communities are composed of species that experience the landscape on a broad range of spatial scales. Spatial arrangement of habitat fragments in a landscape appears to be important only in simple, not complex landscapes.

Subfields: Ecological Modeling, Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Nature and Landscape Conservation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/7540a71e0c4bd9949a6300538dce5fc325c054ab

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Ecological Modeling

In Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

In Nature and Landscape Conservation

Citations in the corpus

The restoration of ecological interactions: plant-pollinator networks on ancient and restored heathlands (2007, background): “It is well known that landscape setting has a marked influence on how great a subset of the regional species pool can be found locally (e.g. Tscharntke et al. 2002; Steffan-Dewenter 2003; Steffan-Dewenter & Kuhn 2003), but some of the factors causing pollinator assemblies to vary dramatically…”
Decline of bumble bees in northeastern North America, with special focus on Bombus terricola (2018, background): “When threatened by habitat loss and climate change, ecological communities have shown to favor common generalists over specialists, leading to a homogenization of natural systems (Warren et al., 2001; Tscharntke et al., 2002; Bommarco et al., 2010; Rowe et al., 2011; Carvalheiro et al., 2013).”
Indirect evidence for an extinction debt of grassland butterflies half century after habitat loss (2010, background): “Habitat loss is a complex process, which can involve a concurrent decline both in habitat area and connectivity as well as in quality of habitat patches (Tscharntke et al., 2002; Fahrig, 2003).”
Plant Herbivore Interactions at the Forest Edge (2008, background): “Wirth et al. (2003) found leaf-cutting ants to concentrate nutrients derived of leaves gathered in large areas in their refuse dumps and Feeley (2005) showed that clumped defaecation of howler monkeys leads to a local concentration of nitrogen and phosphor.”
Landscape moderation of biodiversity patterns and processes ‐ eight hypotheses (2012, background): “…2011), with 20% non-crop habitat per landscape being a rough threshold estimate for ensuring meaningful biodiversity and associated ecosystem processes (Tscharntke et al., 2002b, 2011; Kremen et al., 2004), in line with theoretical considerations (Andrén, 1994; Swift & Hannon, 2010; Hanski, 2011).”
The Restoration of Plant–Pollinator Interactions in Hay Meadows (2005, background): “This variation relates to a variety of factors, such as soil nutrient levels, hydrology, landscape context, and chance (Kitching 1987; Warren 1989; Tavares-Cromar & Williams 1996; Tscharntke et al. 2002).”
The response of tree squirrels to fragmentation: a review and synthesis (2005, background): “Consequences of fragmentation for abiotic and biotic components of ecosystems are varied (for reviews, see Yahner, 1988; Tscharntke et al., 2002).”
Ecology, disturbance and restoration of coastal saltmarsh in Australia: a review (2006, background): “Rare or specialised species and species with lower dispersal capabilities are most affected (Tscharntke et al. 2002).”
Biodiversity, species interactions and ecological networks in a fragmented world (2012, background): “capacity (Didham et al., 1996; Hance et al., 2007; Holt, 2002; Kruess and Tscharntke, 1994; Steffan-Dewenter and Tscharntke, 1999; SteffanDewenter, 2003; Tscharntke et al., 2002; Tylianakis et al., 2007; van Nouhuys, 2005, Vanbergen et al., 2006) and there is evidence from experimental food webs tha”
Specialist species of wood‐inhabiting fungi struggle while generalists thrive in fragmented boreal forests (2013, background): “While the number of studies that try to establish the link between species characteristics and fragmentation sensitivity is high (see e.g. Tscharntke 2002; Aguilar et al. 2006; Barbaro & van Halder 2009), few studies have resulted in conclusive evidence.”
Using the Species-Area Relationship to Set Baseline Targets for Conservation (2004, background): “…and Morisse 1989, Cowling and Bond 1991) to predicting the loss of species from fragmented landscapes (Tilman et al. 1994, Kemper et al. 1999, Cornelius et al. 2000, Miller and Cale 2000, Magura et al. 2001, Acosta and Robertson 2002, Haila 2002, Tscharntke et al. 2002, Zurlini et al. 2002).”
Effects of urbanization on butterfly species richness, guild structure, and rarity (2007, background): “Less attention has been paid to the effects of habitat loss and fragmentation on terrestrial invertebrates (e.g., Gibb and Hochuli 2002; Tscharntke et al. 2002), and only a small subset of this work has investigated the effects of urbanization (e.g., Pizl and Josens 1995; McIntyre and Hostetler…”