In: Oecologia, 2019, vol. 189, no. 1, p. 185–197
Studies on biodiversity–ecosystem functioning (BEF) in highly controlled experiments often yield results incompatible with observations from natural systems: experimental results often reveal positive relationships between diversity and productivity, while for natural systems, zero or even negative relationships have been reported. The discrepancy may arise due to a limited or closed local...
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In: Oikos, 2017, vol. 126, no. 6, p. 782–791
How species diversity influences ecosystem functioning has been the subject of many experiments and remains a key question for ecology and conservation biology. However, the fact that diversity cannot be manipulated without affecting species composition makes this quest methodologically challenging. Here, we evaluate the relative importance of diversity and of composition on biomass...
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In: Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 2014, vol. 5, no. 8, p. 815–823
Studies on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning (BEF) have elicited debate over the interpretation of the positive relationship between species richness and plant productivity. Manipulating richness cannot be achieved without affecting composition; it is thus essential to consider the latter in statistical models.We firstly review existing approaches that use species richness as an explanatory...
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In: Ecosphere, 2014, vol. 5, no. 2, p. art18
Declining plant species richness in agro-ecosystems and thus reduced habitat quality can have cascading effects on ecosystem functioning, leading to reduced pollination and biological control. Here we test if plant diversity can affect arthropod diversity and abundance on a very small scale, manipulating plant species richness (2, 6, 12 and 20 sown species) in small adjacent subplots (6 × 9 m)...
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In: Journal of Animal Ecology, 2013, vol. 82, no. 6, p. 1203–1214
Understanding the environmental factors that structure biodiversity and food webs among communities is central to assess and mitigate the impact of landscape changes. Wildflower strips are ecological compensation areas established in farmland to increase pollination services and biological control of crop pests and to conserve insect diversity. They are arranged in networks in order to favour...
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In: Ecology and Evolution, 2012, vol. 2, no. 10, p. 2460-2473
Wildflower strips are used to increase natural enemies of crop pests and to conserve insect diversity on farmland. Mollusks, especially slugs, can affect the vegetation development in these strips considerably. Although recent theoretical work suggests that more diverse plant communities will exhibit greater resistance against herbivore pressure, empirical studies are scarce. We conducted a...
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In: Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2012, p. -
Food webs are the complex networks of trophic interactions that stoke the metabolic fires of life. To understand what structures these interactions in natural communities, ecologists have developed simple models to capture their main architectural features. However, apparently realistic food webs can be generated by models invoking either predator–prey body-size hierarchies or evolutionary...
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In: Ecology, 2011, vol. 92, no. 12, p. 2183–2189
Body mass is a fundamental characteristic that affects metabolism, life history, and population abundance and frequently sets bounds on who eats whom in food webs. Based on a collection of topological food webs, Ulrich Brose and colleagues presented a general relationship between the body mass of predators and their prey and analyzed how mean predator–prey body-mass ratios differed among...
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In: Biological Invasions, 2010, vol. 12, no. 8, p. 2797-2813
The enemy release hypothesis posits that the initial success of invasive species depends on the scarcity and poor adaptation of native natural enemies such as predators and parasitoids. As for parasitoids, invading hosts are first attacked at low rates by a species-poor complex of mainly generalist species. Over the years, however, parasitoid richness may increase either because the invading host...
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In: The American Naturalist, 2010, vol. 176, no. 2, p. 170-177
Several stochastic models have tried to capture the architecture of food webs. This approach is interesting, but it is limited by the fact that different assumptions can yield similar results. To overcome this limitation, we develop a purely statistical approach. Body size in terms of an optimal ratio between prey and predator is used as explanatory variable. In 12 observed food webs, this model...
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