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

The role of non-native plants and vertebrates in defining patterns of compositional dissimilarity within and across continents

Winter, Marten ; Kühn, Ingolf ; Sorte, Frank A. La ; Schweiger, Oliver ; Nentwig, Wolfgang ; Klotz, Stefan

In: Global Ecology and Biogeography, 2010, vol. 19, no. 3, p. 332-342

Aim Human activities have led to the spread and establishment of increasing numbers of non-native species. Here we assess whether non-native plant and vertebrate species have affected species compositions within and across Europe and North America. We also assess the effects of intra-continental species exchange using the example of vertebrates.Location European countries and North America...

Université de Fribourg

Plant extinctions and introductions lead to phylogenetic and taxonomic homogenization of the European flora

Winter, Marten ; Schweiger, Oliver ; Klotz, Stefan ; Nentwig, Wolfgang ; Andriopoulos, Pavlos ; Arianoutsou, Margarita ; Basnou, Corina ; Delipetrou, Pinelopi ; Didžiulis, Viktoras ; Hejda, Martin ; Hulme, Philip E. ; Lambdon, Philip W. ; Pergl, Jan ; Pyšek, Petr ; Roy, David B. ; Kühn, Ingolf

In: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2009, vol. 106, no. 51, p. 21721-21725

Human activities have altered the composition of biotas through two fundamental processes: native extinctions and alien introductions. Both processes affect the taxonomic (i.e., species identity) and phylogenetic (i.e., species evolutionary history) structure of species assemblages. However, it is not known what the relative magnitude of these effects is at large spatial scales. Here we analyze...