Habitat area and local habitat conditions outweigh fragmentation effects on insect communities in vineyards
Fragmentation of habitat, for example by intensive agricultural practices, can be detrimental to local biodiversity. However, it often remains unclear whether such biodiversity declines are caused by loss of habitat area or increased fragmentation, and how habitat quality factors into it. In our study system, vegetated vineyards are typically small, and isolated from one another, potentially limiting the distribution and dispersal of organisms. In a full-factorial experiment of a priori selected vegetated vineyard patches of differing size and fragmentation, we aimed to disentangle the effects of habitat area (area of vegetated vineyards), habitat fragmentation (number of vegetated vineyard…
The legacy of human use in Amazonian palm communities along environmental and accessibility gradients
Aim: Palms are iconic and dominant elements of neotropical forests. In the Amazon region, palms have been used and managed by humans for food, material, medicine and other purposes for millennia. It is, however, debated to what extent the structure of modern palm communities reflects long-term human modification. Here, we investigate the complex interplay of ecological and societal factors that influence the distributions of both human-used and non-used palms in western Amazonia. Location: Amazonia. Time period: Present. Major taxa studied: Palms (Arecaceae). Methods: We used Bayesian hierarchical joint species distribution models to predict the distributions and environmental niche dimensi…