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Spiders associated with the meadow and tree canopies of orchards respond differently to habitat fragmentation

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Abstract

The response of animal communities to habitat quality and fragmentation may vary depending on microhabitat associations of species. For example, sensitivity of species to woody habitat fragmentation should increase with their degree of association with woody plants. We investigated effects of local and landscape factors on spider communities in different microhabitats within Swiss apple orchards. We expected a stronger negative effect of woody habitat fragmentation on spiders inhabiting tree canopies compared to spiders living in the meadow. The 30 orchards that we sampled varied in woody habitat amount and isolation at landscape and patch scales. Local factors included management intensity and plant diversity. Spiders associated with meadow were affected by plant diversity, but not by fragmentation. In contrast, spiders associated with canopies responded to isolation from other woody habitats. Surprisingly, we found both positive and negative effects of habitat isolation on local abundance. This indicates that differences in dispersal and/or biotic interactions shape the specific response to habitat isolation. The relative importance of local and landscape factors was in accordance with the microhabitat of the spiders. Thus, considering microhabitat associations can be important for identifying processes that would be overlooked if sampling were pooled for the whole habitat.

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Acknowledgments

We thank P. Eberhardt for help in the field, K. Stämpfli for generating field maps, R. G. H. Bunce for his theoretical input, and W. Nentwig for his support. We are grateful to all farmers who allowed conducting this study in their orchards. The manuscript benefitted greatly from suggestions by Robert L. Schooley and two anonymous reviewers. This study was supported by the Swiss National Science foundation under grant number 3100A0-114058 to F. Herzog and M. H. Schmidt-Entling.

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Authors and Affiliations

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

    John D. Herrmann & Martin H. Schmidt-Entling

  2. Research Station Agroscope Reckenholz-Tänikon ART, Reckenholzstrasse 191, 8046, Zürich, Switzerland

    Debra Bailey, Gabriela Hofer & Felix Herzog

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  1. John D. Herrmann
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  2. Debra Bailey
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  3. Gabriela Hofer
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  4. Felix Herzog
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  5. Martin H. Schmidt-Entling
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Correspondence to John D. Herrmann.

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Herrmann, J.D., Bailey, D., Hofer, G. et al. Spiders associated with the meadow and tree canopies of orchards respond differently to habitat fragmentation. Landscape Ecol 25, 1375–1384 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-010-9518-6

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