Université de Fribourg

Including community composition in biodiversity–productivity models

Sandau, Nadine ; Rohr, Rudolf P. ; Naisbit, Russell E. ; Fabian, Yvonne ; Bruggisser, Odile T. ; Kehrli, Patrik ; Aebi, Alexandre ; Bersier, Louis-Félix

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...

Université de Fribourg

Plant diversity in a nutshell: testing for small-scale effects on trap nesting wild bees and wasps

Fabian, Yvonne ; Sandau, Nadine ; Bruggisser, Odile T. ; Aebi, Alexandre ; Kehrli, Patrik ; Rohr, Rudolf P. ; Naisbit, Russell E. ; Bersier, Louis-Félix

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)...

Université de Fribourg

Quarantine arthropod invasions in Europe: the role of climate, hosts and propagule pressure

Bacon, Steven J. ; Aebi, Alexandre ; Calanca, Pierluigi ; Bacher, Sven

In: Diversity and Distributions, 2014, vol. 20, no. 1, p. 84-89

Aim: To quantify the relative importance of propagule pressure, climate-matching and host availability for the invasion of agricultural pest arthropods in Europe and to forecast newly emerging pest species and European areas with the highest risk of arthropod invasion under current climate and a future climate scenario (A1F1).Location: Europe.Methods: We quantified propagule pressure,...