Université de Fribourg

Species richness-environment relationships of european arthropods at two spatial grains: habitats and countries

Entling, Martin H. ; Schweiger, Oliver ; Bacher, Sven ; Espadaler, Xavier ; Hickler, Thomas ; Kumschick, Sabrina ; Woodcock, Ben A. ; Nentwig, Wolfgang

In: PLoS ONE, 2012, vol. 7, no. 9, p. e45875

We study how species richness of arthropods relates to theories concerning net primary productivity, ambient energy, water-energy dynamics and spatial environmental heterogeneity. We use two datasets of arthropod richness with similar spatial extents (Scandinavia to Mediterranean), but contrasting spatial grain (local habitat and country). Samples of ground-dwelling spiders, beetles, bugs and...

Université de Fribourg

Water limitation prevails over energy in European diversity gradients of sheetweb spiders (Araneae: Linyphiidae)

Kumschick, Sabrina ; Schmidt-Entling, Martin H. ; Bacher, Sven ; Hickler, Thomas ; Entling, Wiebke ; Nentwig, Wolfgang

In: Basic and Applied Ecology, 2009, vol. 10, no. 8, p. 754-762

Across large spatial scales, species richness in many taxa is mainly determined by climatic variables. However, some of the mechanisms behind large-scale patterns of species richness and abundance are expected to act on the community level, and on a smaller scale than the resolution of the data commonly used for deriving these patterns. We studied the distribution of sheetweb spiders (Araneae:...

Université de Fribourg

Determinants of local ant (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) species richness and activity density across Europe

Kumschick, Sabrina ; Schmidt-Entling, Martin H. ; Bacher, Sven ; Hickler, Thomas ; Espadaler, Xavier ; Nentwig, Wolfgang

In: Ecological Entomology, 2009, vol. 34, no. 6, p. 748 - 754

1. Species richness is influenced by local habitat features and large-scale climatic gradients. Usually, both influences are studied in isolation because of the divergent spatial scales at which they occur. Here, we compared the influence of large-scale climate and local habitat type on European ants using a continent-wide, standardised sampling programme.2. We investigated species richness and...

Université de Fribourg

Alien species in a warmer world: risks and opportunities

Walther, Gian-Reto ; Roques, Alain ; Hulme, Philip E. ; Sykes, Martin T. ; Pyšek, Petr ; Kühn, Ingolf ; Zobel, Martin ; Bacher, Sven ; Botta-Dukát, Zoltán ; Bugmann, Harald ; Czúcz, Bálint ; Dauber, Jens ; Hickler, Thomas ; Jarošík, Vojtěch ; Kenis, Marc ; Klotz, Stefan ; Minchin, Dan ; Moora, Mari ; Nentwig, Wolfgang ; Ott, Jürgen ; Panov, Vadim E. ; Reineking, Björn ; Robinet, Christelle ; Semenchenko, Vitaliy ; Solarz, Wojciech ; Thuiller, Wilfried ; Vilà, Montserrat ; Vohland, Katrin ; Settele, Josef

In: Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 2009, vol. 24, no. 12, p. 686-693

Climate change and biological invasions are key processes affecting global biodiversity, yet their effects have usually been considered separately. Here, we emphasise that global warming has enabled alien species to expand into regions in which they previously could not survive and reproduce. Based on a review of climate-mediated biological invasions of plants, invertebrates, fishes and birds, we...