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Effects of prescribed burning on carabid beetle diversity in coastal anthropogenic heathlands

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Abstract

European anthropogenic coastal heathlands are threatened by the cessation of traditional management practices. Fire has a long history in the management of this landscape, and its effect on various species groups has been investigated in previous studies. However, the resolution of these studies is generally rather coarse and is biased towards plants. In this study, we investigate the species diversity and composition of carabid beetles over a 22-year chronosequence of time since last fire in a coastal heathland in western Norway. We show that burning increases alpha species richness, and is particularly important for the richness of typical open habitat species. Our results also show that there are clear compositional differences between assemblages along the chronosequence, supporting the value for landscape scale biodiversity of rotational burning. Species richness is also increased by a higher species turnover between consecutive years in patches that have been burnt recently as compared to patches that have not been burnt for a long time. We conclude that burning is important in maintaining carabid diversity in anthropogenic heaths, and that prescribed burns should aim to create a mosaic of different burn years, preferably with a bias toward younger stages.

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Acknowledgments

Thank you to the Heathland Centre (Lyngheisenteret) for their permission to use Lygra as a study site, and to Torhild Kvingedal, Bente Fivelsdal, Dan Skorve, Astrid Pletten and Harry Köhne for their help with transport to Lurekalven. For help with fieldwork, we would like to thank Amy Eycott, Keno Ferter, Vivian Astrup Felde, Lise Tingstad, Clara Pérez Martínez and Joanne Inchbald. Thanks also go to Frode Ødegaard, John Skartveit and the late Torstein Solhøy for their help with grey literature, field equipment and helpful suggestions. We would also like to thank two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments in the final stages of this manuscript. Funding for this project was provided by Bergen Myrdyrkningsforeningsfond and Olaf Grolle Olsens Legat.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, University of Bergen, Thormøhlensgate 53A, 5006, Bergen, Norway

    Tessa Bargmann, Bjørn Arild Hatteland & John-Arvid Grytnes

  2. Plant Health and Plant Protection Division, Norwegian Institute for Agricultural and Environmental Research (Bioforsk), Bioforsk Ullensvang, 5781, Lofthus, Norway

    Bjørn Arild Hatteland

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  1. Tessa Bargmann
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Correspondence to Tessa Bargmann.

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Communicated by Jari Niemela.

Appendix

Appendix

See Fig. 5; Tables 1 and 2.

Fig. 5
figure 5

Variograms show lack of spatial autocorrelation of the residuals of models shown in Fig. 2a and b

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Table 1 Number of carabids of each species trapped in each sample year, their presence in each stage, and habitat and moisture preferences
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Table 2 List of species caught in litter samples in patches of different times since prescribed burning
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Bargmann, T., Hatteland, B.A. & Grytnes, JA. Effects of prescribed burning on carabid beetle diversity in coastal anthropogenic heathlands. Biodivers Conserv 24, 2565–2581 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-015-0945-1

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