Abstract

Context According to the trophic-rank hypothesis, species may be differentially affected by habitat isolation due to their trophic position in the food chain, i.e. high-order trophic levels may be more negatively affected than low-order levels.Objectives The aim of this paper is to study how species richness, abundance and composition of saproxylic beetle communities are affected by patch (=tree) quality and small-scale patch connectivity. Following the trophic-rank hypothesis, we expected predators to be more negatively affected by patch isolation than wood-feeding beetles.Methods We studied the beetle community, patch connectivity and patch quality on 28 large oaks. Different connectivity measures were calculated using 50 m-buffers around trees and using distances to the five nearest trees.Results Beetle species richness increased with the diameter of oaks, i.e. patch quality. No evidence of the trophic-rank hypothesis was found for species richness patterns. In accordance with the trophic-rank hypothesis, abundance of predatory beetles increased with patch connectivity but lower trophic levels were unaffected or even decreased with patch connectivity.Conclusions The structure of invertebrate communities on trees changes with small-scale patch connectivity due to a differential response of low-order and high-order trophic levels. Isolated trees are more exposed to the sun than the more connected trees, which may affect the beetles; however, it was impossible to distinguish the microclimatic from the spatial effects. Although scattered trees generally have a higher conservation value than trees in forests, we conclude that forest trees may be more important for certain trophic levels.

Keywords

Forest management; Forest structure; Scattered trees; Trophic-rank hypothesis; Wood-inhabiting beetles

Published in

Landscape Ecology
2016, Volume: 31, number: 5, pages: 939-949
Publisher: SPRINGER

SLU Authors

• Ranius, Thomas

  • Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

UKÄ Subject classification

Ecology


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-015-0309-y

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/78480