Herbivore and pollinator responses to grassland management intensity along experimental changes in plant species richness

By Anika Hudewenz, Alexandra-Maria Klein, C. Scherber, Lea Stanke, T. Tscharntke, Anja Vogel, A. Weigelt, W. Weisser, A. Ebeling. 2012

100 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract Agricultural intensification is a major driver of global environmental change. Disentangling the relative impact of losses in plant species richness and intensified management on higher trophic level organisms is important for conservation recommendations. We established different management regimes along an experimental gradient of plant species richness within “The Jena-Experiment” in Germany and quantified herbivory as well as grasshoppers and pollinators. Herbivory, grasshopper density and species richness and frequency of flower visiting pollinators were recorded two times in each of four subplots of altogether 80 plots differing in plant species richness. Each of the four subplots was subject to four different levels of fertilizer application and mowing to simulate very low, low, high and very high land use intensity. Fertilization and mowing significantly affected plant–herbivore interactions but plant species richness had no discernible effect. Grasshoppers were most abundant at high intensity subplots (3.1 individuals per m 2 ) and least abundant on very low intensity subplots (1.3 individuals per m 2 ). Leaf damage caused by herbivores was highest in even the very high intensity subplots (3.7%) with four mowing events per year and high amounts of fertilizer application and lowest on subplots with a low management intensity (2.4%) comprising two mowing events per year but no fertilizer application. In contrast, pollinators benefited most from lower management intensities, with only one or two mowing events and no fertilizer addition. In addition, higher numbers of flowering plant species and increased blossom cover was associated with enhanced pollinator species richness and flower visitation. Our results indicate that even in grasslands with high plant species richness, mowing and fertilization are more important drivers of herbivory and flower visitation by pollinators. Management with no more than two cuts per year and without fertilizer application in our grasslands balanced the ecosystem functions of increased pollination and decreased herbivory.

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

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/e06b8cf3a0cbbd714eb032a25e79b791001ed679

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In Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

In Nature and Landscape Conservation

In Plant Science

Citations in the corpus

Biodiversity effects on ecosystem functioning in a 15-year grassland experiment: Patterns, mechanisms, and open questions (2017, background): “Fertilization increased community herbivory independent of the plant species richness gradient (Hudewenz et al. 2012).”
Functional flower traits and their diversity drive pollinator visitation (2017, background): “In 2008 four surveys of 6 min per plot were conducted (5 May, 1 June, 16 July, 6 August; Hudewenz et al. 2012), resulting in 766 plot observations (3 times 73 plots in 2005 3 times 73 plots in 2006 4 times 82 plots in 2008) and overall 4596 minutes observation time.”
Measuring the economic value of pollination services: principles, evidence and knowledge gaps. (2015, background): “Increased synthetic fertiliser use and livestock stocking density can also cause significant long-term shifts in floral communities, reducing available forage resources for pollinating insects (Isbell et al., 2013; Hudewenz et al., 2012).”