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Spiders associated with the meadow and tree canopies of orchards respond differently to habitat fragmentation

Herrmann, John ; Bailey, Debra ; Hofer, Gabriela ; Herzog, Felix ; Schmidt-Entling, Martin

In: Landscape Ecology, 2010, vol. 25, no. 9, p. 1375-1384

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    Title
    • Spiders associated with the meadow and tree canopies of orchards respond differently to habitat fragmentation
    Author
    • Herrmann, John. Institute of Ecology and Evolution, University of Bern, Baltzerstrasse 6, 3012, Bern, Switzerland
    • Bailey, Debra. Research Station Agroscope Reckenholz-Tänikon ART, Reckenholzstrasse 191, 8046, Zürich, Switzerland
    • Hofer, Gabriela. Research Station Agroscope Reckenholz-Tänikon ART, Reckenholzstrasse 191, 8046, Zürich, Switzerland
    • Herzog, Felix. Research Station Agroscope Reckenholz-Tänikon ART, Reckenholzstrasse 191, 8046, Zürich, Switzerland
    • Schmidt-Entling, Martin. Institute of Ecology and Evolution, University of Bern, Baltzerstrasse 6, 3012, Bern, Switzerland
    Document Type
    • Postprint
    OAI-PMH Identifier
    • oai:doc.rero.ch:322160
    Summary
    The response of animal communities to habitat quality and fragmentation may vary depending on microhabitat associations of species. For example, sensitivity of species to woody habitat fragmentation should increase with their degree of association with woody plants. We investigated effects of local and landscape factors on spider communities in different microhabitats within Swiss apple orchards. We expected a stronger negative effect of woody habitat fragmentation on spiders inhabiting tree canopies compared to spiders living in the meadow. The 30 orchards that we sampled varied in woody habitat amount and isolation at landscape and patch scales. Local factors included management intensity and plant diversity. Spiders associated with meadow were affected by plant diversity, but not by fragmentation. In contrast, spiders associated with canopies responded to isolation from other woody habitats. Surprisingly, we found both positive and negative effects of habitat isolation on local abundance. This indicates that differences in dispersal and/or biotic interactions shape the specific response to habitat isolation. The relative importance of local and landscape factors was in accordance with the microhabitat of the spiders. Thus, considering microhabitat associations can be important for identifying processes that would be overlooked if sampling were pooled for the whole habitat