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While urbanisation contributes to global biodiversity declines, flower-rich urban habitats may provide beneficial pollinator habitats. We investigated the potential of urban residential areas to contribute to pollinator diversity by analysing wild bee and hoverfly species richness and composition of species assemblages of summer-active species, sampled in 53 gardens across urban and rural landscap
Do the misty mountains, fast-flowing rivers, and sandy beaches leave you in awe and fill you with insatiable wonder? Does nature bring you a jubilant feeling? Nature contributes to our quality of life in multiple ways. Some of these gifts are easily visible, like the clothes you wear, the food you eat, and the water your drink. However, some contributions, such as flood protection and pollination
We report here a method for the determination of the pKa of histidine in complex or heterogeneous systems amenable to neither solid-state nor solution NMR spectroscopy. Careful synthesis of a fluorenylmethyloxycarbonyl- and trityl-protected, C2-deuterated histidine produces a vibrational-probe-equipped amino acid that can readily be incorporated into any peptide accessible by standard solid-phase
Increasing human impact on the environment is causing drastic changes in disturbance regimes and how they prevail over time. Of increasing relevance is to further our understanding on biological responses to pulse disturbances (short duration) and how they interact with other ongoing press disturbances (constantly present). Because the temporal and spatial contexts of single experiments often limi
In agricultural landscapes, sown flower strips can benefit pollinators and pollination of nearby plants, but their impact on pollination in the wider landscape is poorly studied. We evaluated effects on reproductive success of field bean (Vicia faba) and woodland strawberry (Fragaria vesca) using data from two study systems, both including study sites (1 km radius) with (flower strip sites) or wit
To promote a more sustainable agricultural production, the European Commission implemented direct payments that require farmers to implement greening measures aimed at reducing negative effects of agriculture on the environment and biodiversity. These greening measures (including fallows and permanent grasslands) have been criticised for their potential inability to conserve biodiversity and promo
Many studies have investigated effects of organic farming on the abundance and diversity of farmland birds, but few have considered how these effects vary between seasons. We analysed the effects of organic farming during an entire year in a previously understudied region, Galicia (North-West Spain), a relatively heterogeneous landscape which is an important wintering and breeding ground for birds
Land-Use Change and Terrestrial Predator–Prey Networks Land-use change, here defined as the conversion of one land-use type into another (e.g., forest to arable land), affects biodiversity and biotic interactions worldwide (Sala et al., 2000). Although there has been large regional variation in the extent of agricultural expansion and abandonment in Europe in the past 50 years (Rabbinge and van Di
Changes in forestry practices and on-going climate change may both have large impacts on forest bird populations. However, large-scale analyses of the effects of temporal changes in forest structure on forest bird numbers are largely lacking. We compared temporal trends from two Swedish nationwide long-term monitoring schemes, the Swedish Bird Survey (1998–2015) and the Swedish National Forestry I
As blooms of cyanobacteria expand and intensify in freshwater systems globally, there is increasing interest in their ecological effects. In addition to being public health hazards, cyanobacteria have long been considered a poor quality food for key zooplankton grazers that link phytoplankton to higher trophic levels. While past laboratory studies have found negative effects of nutritional constra
Measures of functional diversity are expected to predict community responses to land use and environmental change because, in contrast to taxonomic diversity, it is based on species traits rather than their identity. Here, we investigated the impact of landscape homogenisation on plants, butterflies and birds in terms of the proportion of arable field cover in southern Finland at local (0.25 km2)
Extreme climatic events, such as heat waves, are predicted to increase in frequency and intensity during the next hundred years, which may accelerate shifts in hydrological regimes and submerged macrophyte composition in freshwater ecosystems. Since macrophytes are profound components of aquatic systems, predicting their response to extreme climatic events is crucial for implementation of climate
Modeling pollination ecosystem services requires a spatially explicit, process-based approach because they depend on both the behavioral responses of pollinators to the amount and spatial arrangement of habitat and on the within- and between-season dynamics of pollinator populations in response to land use. We describe a novel pollinator model predicting flower visitation rates by wild central-pla
Along with the global decline of species richness goes a loss of ecological traits. Associated biotic homogenization of animal communities and narrowing of trait diversity threaten ecosystem functioning and human well-being. High management intensity is regarded as an important ecological filter, eliminating species that lack suitable adaptations. Below-ground arthropods are assumed to be less sen
Mass-flowering crops lead to spatial redistributions of pollinators and to transient shortages within nearby semi-natural grasslands, but the impacts on plant-pollinator interactions remain largely unexplored. Here, we characterised which pollinator species are attracted by oilseed rape and how this affected the structure of plant-pollinator networks in nearby grasslands. We surveyed 177 networks
Agricultural intensification is a leading cause of global biodiversity loss, which can reduce the provisioning of ecosystem services in managed ecosystems. Organic farming and plant diversification are farm management schemes that may mitigate potential ecological harm by increasing species richness and boosting related ecosystem services to agroecosystems. What remains unclear is the extent to wh
Aims: Climate change is known to drive both the reshuffling of whole assemblages and range shifts of individual species. Less is known about how local colonizations and extinctions of individual species contribute to changes at the community level. Our aim was to estimate the contribution of individual species to a change in community composition attributed to climate change and to relate these sp
Interactions between multiple stressors have been implicated in elevated honeybee colony losses. Here, we extend our landscape-scale study on the effects of placement at clothianidin seed-treated oilseed rape fields on honeybees with an additional year and new data on honeybee colony development, swarming, mortality, pathogens and immune gene expression. Clothianidin residues in pollen, nectar and
Extensively managed grasslands are recognized globally for their high biodiversity and their social and cultural values. However, their capacity to deliver multiple ecosystem services (ES) as parts of agricultural systems is surprisingly understudied compared to other production systems. We undertook a comprehensive overview of ES provided by natural and semi-natural grasslands, using southern Afr
