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Differential effects of habitat isolation and landscape composition on wasps, bees, and their enemies

  • Community ecology - Original Paper
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Abstract

Habitat loss and fragmentation are major threats to biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. Effects of these usually intercorrelated processes on biodiversity have rarely been separated at a landscape scale. We studied the independent effects of amount of woody habitat in the landscape and three levels of isolation from the next woody habitat (patch isolation) on trap nesting bees, wasps, and their enemies at 30 farmland sites in the Swiss plateau. Species richness of wasps was negatively affected by patch isolation and positively affected by the amount of woody habitat in the landscape. In contrast, species richness of bees was neither influenced by patch isolation nor by landscape composition. Isolation from woody habitats reduced species richness and abundance of natural enemies more strongly than of their hosts, so that parasitism rate was lowered by half in isolated sites compared to forest edges. Thus, population regulation of the hosts may be weakened by habitat fragmentation. We conclude that habitat amount at the landscape scale and local patch connectivity are simultaneously important for biodiversity conservation.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to 30 farmers for providing land for study sites. We thank Jochen Krauss, Nina Farwig, Matthias Albrecht, Florian Menzel and three anonymous reviewers for valuable comments on the manuscript. Suse Schiele and Matthias Albrecht gave important advice on construction and evaluation of trap nests and Ruth Schüepp, Liselotte Looser and Martin Müller assisted in the field and laboratory. We are grateful to Erich Szerencsits and Beatrice Schüpbach for assistance in GIS analysis and Serge Buholzer for mapping plant species. Irene Salzmann (Crabronidae), Mike Herrmann (Eumeninae, Apidae), Hannes Baur (Chalcidoidea), and Seraina Klopfstein (Ichneumonoidea) determined species. This study was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation under grant number 3100A0-114058 to Felix Herzog and Martin Schmidt-Entling.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Ecology and Evolution, Community Ecology, University of Bern, Baltzerstrasse 6, 3012, Bern, Switzerland

    Christof Schüepp, John D. Herrmann & Martin H. Schmidt-Entling

  2. Agroscope Reckenholz-Tänikon, Reckenholzstrasse 191, 8046, Zurich, Switzerland

    Felix Herzog

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  1. Christof Schüepp
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  2. John D. Herrmann
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  4. Martin H. Schmidt-Entling
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Correspondence to Christof Schüepp.

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Communicated by Roland Brandl.

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Schüepp, C., Herrmann, J.D., Herzog, F. et al. Differential effects of habitat isolation and landscape composition on wasps, bees, and their enemies. Oecologia 165, 713–721 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-010-1746-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-010-1746-6

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