Abstract
Anthropogenic land cover change is a major driver of biodiversity loss, with urbanisation and farmland practices responsible for some of the most drastic modifications of natural habitats. The relative importance of different land covers for shaping insect communities, however, is unclear. This study examines the effect of urban and farmland covers, along with land cover heterogeneity, at a landscape scale on species richness, evenness and biomass of flying insects using citizen science carnet sampling across Denmark. Increasing urban cover had a negative effect on insect richness but an even stronger negative effect on biomass. Increased land cover heterogeneity did not mitigate the negative effect of urban cover. Insect assemblages also became more even with increased urban cover. Farmland cover had no significant effect on insect richness, evenness or biomass. Based on our findings, the urban cover has a strong negative impact on insect communities, indicating that urbanisation could contribute to insect declines. Moreover, our findings indicate that insect loss occurs more through loss of biomass than loss of species, which may affect the ecosystem-level consequences of urbanisation.
Originalsprog | Engelsk |
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Tidsskrift | Insect Conservation and Diversity |
Vol/bind | 17 |
Udgave nummer | 2 |
Sider (fra-til) | 182-188 |
Antal sider | 7 |
ISSN | 1752-458X |
DOI | |
Status | Udgivet - 2024 |
Bibliografisk note
Funding Information:Aage V. Jensen Naturfond; The Danish Ministry of Higher Education and Science, Grant/Award Number: 7072‐00014B. We gratefully acknowledge the support of the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) funded by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG–FZT 118, 202548816).
Funding Information:
We are grateful for all the time and effort provided by the many volunteers taking part in the insect monitoring program InsectMobile . We also thank the following for help and discussion on the InsektMobile project: Susanne Hecker, Jesper Bladt, Volker Grescho, Nicole M. van Dam, Jens Dauber, David Eichenberg, Rasmus Ejrnæs, Camilla Fløjgaard, Mark Frenzel, Tobias G. Frøslev, Anders J. Hansen, Jacob Heilmann‐Clausen , Yuanyuan Huang, Jonas C. Larsen, Juliana Menger, Nur L. B. M. Nayan, Lene B. Pedersen and Anett Richter. Funding was provided by Aage V. Jensen Naturfond and The Danish Ministry of Higher Education and Science for the Danish project ( 7072‐00014B ). We also gratefully acknowledge the support of the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research ( iDiv ) funded by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG – FZT 118, 202548816). Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 The Authors. Insect Conservation and Diversity published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Royal Entomological Society.