Abstract
AbstractAimForests are highly fragmented across Western Europe, making forest edges important features in many agricultural landscapes. Forest edges are subject to strong abiotic gradients altering the forest environment and resulting in strong biotic gradients. This has the potential to change the forest's capacity to provide multiple ecosystem services such as nutrient cycling, carbon sequestration and natural pest control. Soil organisms play a key role in this perspective; however, these taxa are rarely considered in forest edge research.LocationA latitudinal gradient of 2,000 km across Western Europe.MethodsWe sampled six dominant taxa of litter‐dwelling macro‐arthropods (carabid beetles, spiders, harvestmen, centipedes, millipedes and woodlice) in forest edges and interiors of 192 forest fragments in 12 agricultural landscapes. We related their abundance and community composition to distance from the edge and the interaction with forest age, edge orientation and edge contrast (contrast between land use types at either side of the edge).ResultsThree out of six macro‐arthropod taxa have higher activity‐density in forest edges compared to forest interiors. The abundance patterns along forest edge‐to‐interior gradients interacted with forest age. Forest age and edge orientation also influenced within‐fragment compositional variation along the forest edge‐to‐interior gradient. Edge contrast influenced abundance gradients of generalist predators. In general, older forest fragments, south‐oriented edges and edges along structurally more continuous land use (lower contrast between forest and adjacent land use) resulted in stronger edge‐to‐interior gradients while recent forests, north‐oriented edges and sharp land use edges induced similarity between forest edge and interior along the forest edge‐to‐interior gradients in terms of species activity‐density and composition.Main conclusionsEdge effects on litter‐dwelling macro‐arthropods are anticipated to feedback on important ecosystem services such as nutrient cycling, carbon sequestration and natural pest control from small forest fragments.
Highlights
Many landscapes around the world show increasing amounts of for‐ est edges because of extensive forest fragmentation, due to land conversion for agriculture, infrastructure or residential areas (Ibisch et al, 2016; Wade, Riiters, Wickham, & Jones, 2003)
The shaded north‐oriented edges more closely resemble forest interior resulting in a lower divergence in community composition between forest edge and interior
To forest age and edge orientation, edge contrast with the adjacent land use type is an important factor determining the strength of edge ef‐ fects with high edge contrast if the land use types at either side of the edge are very different in structure, management intensity etc
Summary
Many landscapes around the world show increasing amounts of for‐ est edges because of extensive forest fragmentation, due to land conversion for agriculture, infrastructure or residential areas (Ibisch et al, 2016; Wade, Riiters, Wickham, & Jones, 2003). Forest age (successional devel‐ opment) influences abiotic gradients, with a cooler microclimate in older forest, which results in a stronger distinction between forest edge and interior conditions and higher strength of edge influ‐ ence (Matlack, 1993). This stronger distinction between forest edge and interior can result in higher differences in community compo‐ sition between forest edge and interior in old compared to young forests (De la Peña et al, 2016). It is generally assumed that “soft edges” (e.g., forest edges bordering other forest types or abandoned fields) manifest less strong edge effects compared to “hard edges” (e.g., forest edges bordering very intensive agricultural crop fields) (Peyras, Vespa Bellocq, & Zurita, 2013; Reino et al, 2009; Yekwayo, Pryke, Roets, & Samways, 2016)
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