Abstract
South America is undergoing a rapid and large‐scale conversion of natural habitats to cultivated land. Ecosystem services still remain important but their level and sustainability are not known. We quantified predation intensity in an Argentinian agricultural landscape containing remnants of the original chaco serrano forest using artificial sentinel prey. We sought to identify the main predators and the effect of landscape configuration and maize phenology on predation pressure by invertebrate and vertebrate predators in this landscape. The most common predators were chewing insects (50.4% predation events), birds (22.7%), and ants (17.5%). Overall predation rates in forest fragments (41.6% per day) were significantly higher than in the surrounding maize fields (21.5% per day). Invertebrate predation was higher inside and at the edge of forest fragments than within fields, and did not change with increasing distance from a fragment edge, indicating a lack of spillover from the native habitat remnants to the cultivated matrix at the local scale. Distance from a continuous forest had a positive impact on predation by invertebrates and a negative impact on vertebrate predation.
Highlights
With the increasing size of the human population, demand on various resources has accelerated dramatically (Steffen, Broadgate, Deutsch, Gaffney, & Ludwig, 2015)
We found predation rates up to 42% per day, constituting strong top-down effects in this landscape
Our study site was located in Córdoba Province (31.10°–31.30°S and 64.00°–64.30°W) in central Argentina
Summary
Our study site was located in Córdoba Province (31.10°–31.30°S and 64.00°–64.30°W) in central Argentina. Total predation rates within forest fragments (mean = 41.6% per day, SD = 12.5% per day, n = 11) were significantly higher (Tukey’s t test, p < .001 for all comparisons) than in the maize fields, at any distance from the forest (mean = 21.5% per day, SD = 3.2% per day, n = 11). Distance from the closest neighboring fragment (Isolation 1) had a significant positive effect on total (GLMM, z = 2.49, p < .05), vertebrate (GLMM, z = 3.36, p < .001), bird (GLMM, z = 2.77, p < .01) predation rates, and a marginally positive effect on predation by ants (GLMM, z = 1.68, p < .1). Distance from the continuous forest (Isolation 3) had a significant positive effect on predation by all invertebrates (GLMM, z = 3.62, p < .001), and chewing insects (GLMM, z = 2.79, p < .01), but a negative effect on vertebrate predation (GLMM, z = 4.66, p < .001). H4: Predation pressure by invertebrate predators decreases away from the forest edge
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