BUSCADOR RECOLECTA

Functional traits mediate the response of communities to disturbances (response traits) and their contribution to ecosystem functions (effect traits). To predict how anthropogenic disturbances influence ecosystem services requires a dual approach including both trait concepts. Here, we used a response-effect trait conceptual framework to understand how local and landscape features affect pollinator functional diversity and pollination services in apple orchards. We worked in 110 apple orchards across four European regions. Orchards differed in management practices. Low-intensity (LI) orchards were certified organic or followed close-to-organic practices. High-intensity (HI) orchards followed integrated pest management practices. Within each management type, orchards encompassed a range of local (flower diversity, agri-environmental structures) and landscape features (orchard and pollinator-friendly habitat cover). We measured pollinator visitation rates and calculated trait composition metrics based on 10 pollinator traits. We used initial fruit set as a measure of pollination service. Some pollinator traits (body size and hairiness) were negatively related to orchard cover and positively affected by pollinator-friendly habitat cover. Bee functional diversity was lower in HI orchards and decreased with increased landscape orchard cover. Pollination service was not associated with any particular trait but increased with pollinator trait diversity in LI orchards. As a result, LI orchards with high pollinator trait diversity reached levels of pollination service similar to those of HI orchards. Synthesis and applications. Pollinator functional diversity enables pollinator communities to respond to agricultural intensification and to increase pollination function. Our results show that efforts to promote biodiversity provide greater returns in low-intensity than in high-intensity orchards. The fact that low-intensity orchards with high pollinator functional diversity reach levels of pollination services similar to those of high-intensity orchards provides a compelling argument for the conversion of high-intensity into low-intensity farms.

his research (EcoFruit project)
was funded through the 2013–2014 BiodivERsA/FACCE-JPI joint call (2014-74), Spanish MinECo (PCIN-2014-145-C02), German BMBF (PT-DLR/BMBF, 01LC1403) and Swedish Research Council Formas (2014-1784) by Formas (2013-934 to M.T.), Stiftelsen Lantbruksforskning (H1256150 to M.P.), INIA (RTA2013- 00039-C03- 00 to G.A. and M.M.), MinECo/FEDER (CGL2015-68963-C2-2-R to D.G.), FI-AGAUR (to L.R.-B.) and MinECo (RYC-2015-18448 to X.A.).

[Aim] Biogeographical comparisons of interaction networks help to elucidate differences in ecological communities and ecosystem functioning at large scales. Neotropical ecosystems have higher diversity and a different composition of frugivores and fleshy-fruited plants compared with Afrotropical systems, but a lack of intercontinental comparisons limits understanding of (a) whether plant–frugivore networks are structured in a similar manner, and (b) whether the same species traits define the roles of animals across continents., [Location] Afrotropics and Neotropics., [Time period] 1977-2015., [Taxa] Fleshy-fruited plants and frugivorous vertebrates., [Methods] We compiled a dataset comprising 17 Afrotropical and 48 Neotropical weighted seed-dispersal networks quantifying frugivory interactions between 1,091 fleshy-fruited plant and 665 animal species, comprising in total 8,251 interaction links between plants and animals. In addition, we compiled information on the body mass of animals and their degree of frugivory. We compared four standard network-level metrics related to interaction diversity and specialization, accounting for differences related to sampling effort and network location. Furthermore, we tested whether animal traits (body mass, degree of frugivory) differed between continents, whether these traits were related to the network roles of species and whether these relationships varied between continents., [Results] We found significant structural differences in networks between continents. Overall, Neotropical networks were less nested and more specialized than Afrotropical networks. At the species level, a higher body mass and degree of frugivory were associated with an increasing diversity of plant partners. Specialization of frugivores increased with the degree of frugivory, but only in the Neotropics., [Main conclusions] Our findings show that Afrotropical networks have a greater overlap in plant partners among vertebrate frugivores than the more diverse networks in the Neotropics that are characterized by a greater niche partitioning. Hence, the loss of frugivore species could have stronger impacts on ecosystem functioning in the more specialized Neotropical communities compared with the more generalized Afrotropical communities., We thank Beth A. Kaplin and Norbert J. Cordeiro for their guidance and support for P.J.D., who received a travel grant by The Center for Tropical Studies and Conservation (CTEC). L.C. and I.G. were supported by the Robert Bosch Foundation. D.M.D. (DE 2754/1‐1), F.S. (HE 3041/20‐1), M.Q., V.S., E.L.N. (Research Unit 823‐825), and K.B.G., M.S. and M.G.R.V. (FOR 1246) thank the German Research Foundation (DFG) for funding. F.A.F.J. acknowledges funding by a CAPES scholarship, N.F. and D.G.S. by the Robert Bosch Foundation, M.G., C.E., A.P. and M.A.P. by Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP 2010/52315‐7; 2015/15172‐7; 2016/18355‐8) and Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico (CNPq), M.C.M. by Doctoral Fellowships from COLCIENCIAS and Rufford, M.S.S. by Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET) and FONCyT (PICT2013‐2759 and PICT2016‐0608), P.G.B. by CONICET (PIP 2014‐592) and FONCyT (PICT 2013‐1280), R.A.R. by a Doctoral Fellowship from CONICET, R.H. and S.T. (IF/00441/2013) and M.C. (SFRH/BD/96050/2013) by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, Portugal, and A.T. (CGL2013‐44386‐P) and D.G. (CGL2015‐68963‐C2‐2‐R) by the Spanish government. T.

Anthropogenic disturbances are jeopardizing ecosystem functioning globally. Yet, we know very little about the effect of human impacts on ecological processes derived from trophic interactions. By focusing on biodiversity components of consumer and resource organisms, such as the diversity of phylogenetic lineages and the diversity of traits that influence species interactions, it is possible to simultaneously address the responses to disturbances and their effects on processes.
Here, we evaluate the consequences of forest loss on the ecological process of frugivory between fleshy‐fruited plants and frugivorous birds. For 2 years, and at 14 sites representing a gradient of forest cover in the Cantabrian Range (N Iberian Peninsula), we monitored fruit and bird abundance, and fruit consumption. We compared the response to forest loss of both plants and birds by assessing the changes in phylogenetic and trait‐based functional diversity in relation to forest cover. We further evaluated how changes in these biodiversity components translate into functional changes by estimating the degree of functional complementarity of plant and bird species.
We found different responses of plants and birds to forest loss. The diversity of plant assemblages did not respond to changes in forest cover, whereas bird assemblages markedly lost phylogenetic and trait‐based functional diversity at high levels of forest loss. Functional complementarity of birds was well predicted by phylogenetic and trait‐based functional diversity, but functional complementarity of plants depended exclusively on the diversity of traits.
Forest loss filtered avian phylogenetic lineages and traits, and influenced how birds contributed to the frugivory process. These results show how the diversity decay of one trophic level may compromise ecological processes derived from trophic interactions. Therefore, we suggest that a multitrophic response‐effect framework, which includes measures of functional traits, lineages and species functional contributions across trophic levels, may be required to fully understand the ecological consequences of biodiversity decays., MinECo/FEDER. Grant Numbers: CGL2011‐28430, CGL2015‐68963‐C2‐2‐R, BES2012‐052863, BES‐2016‐078260, Peer reviewed

Understanding the full diet of natural enemies is necessary for evaluating their role as biocontrol agents, because many enemy species do not only feed on pests but also on other natural enemies. Such intraguild predation can compromise pest control if the consumed enemies are actually better for pest control than their predators. In this study, we used gut metabarcoding to quantify diets of all common arachnid species in Swedish and Spanish apple orchards. For this purpose, we designed new primers that reduce amplification of arachnid predators while retaining high amplification of all prey groups. Results suggest that most arachnids consume a large range of putative pest species on apple but also a high proportion of other natural enemies, where the latter constitute almost a third of all prey sequences. Intraguild predation also varied between regions, with a larger content of heteropteran bugs in arachnid guts from Spanish orchards, but not between orchard types. There was also a tendency for cursorial spiders to have more intraguild prey in the gut than web spiders. Two groups that may be overlooked as important biocontrol agents in apple orchards seem to be theridiid web spiders and opilionids, where the latter had several small-bodied pest species in the gut. These results thus provide important guidance for what arachnid groups should be targets of management actions, even though additional information is needed to quantify all direct and indirect interactions occurring in the complex arthropod food webs in fruit orchards., The project was funded through Carl Trygger's Foundation for Scientific Research and the BiodivERsA/FACCE JPI joint call (agreement BiodivERsA-FACCE 2014–74), with the Swedish national funder Formas (grant 2014–1784) and the Spanish funder MinECo (grant CGL2015–68963-C2–2-R)., Peer reviewed

Data available via the Dryad Digital Repository https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.63xsj3v39 (Roquer-Beni et al., 2021)., Functional traits mediate the response of communities to disturbances (response traits) and their contribution to ecosystem functions (effect traits). To predict how anthropogenic disturbances influence ecosystem services requires a dual approach including both trait concepts. Here, we used a response–effect trait conceptual framework to understand how local and landscape features affect pollinator functional diversity and pollination services in apple orchards. We worked in 110 apple orchards across four European regions. Orchards differed in management practices. Low-intensity (LI) orchards were certified organic or followed close-to-organic practices. High-intensity (HI) orchards followed integrated pest management practices. Within each management type, orchards encompassed a range of local (flower diversity, agri-environmental structures) and landscape features (orchard and pollinator-friendly habitat cover). We measured pollinator visitation rates and calculated trait composition metrics based on 10 pollinator traits. We used initial fruit set as a measure of pollination service. Some pollinator traits (body size and hairiness) were negatively related to orchard cover and positively affected by pollinator-friendly habitat cover. Bee functional diversity was lower in HI orchards and decreased with increased landscape orchard cover. Pollination service was not associated with any particular trait but increased with pollinator trait diversity in LI orchards. As a result, LI orchards with high pollinator trait diversity reached levels of pollination service similar to those of HI orchards. Synthesis and applications. Pollinator functional diversity enables pollinator communities to respond to agricultural intensification and to increase pollination function. Our results show that efforts to promote biodiversity provide greater returns in low-intensity than in high-intensity orchards. The fact that low-intensity orchards with high pollinator functional diversity reach levels of pollination services similar to those of high-intensity orchards provides a compelling argument for the conversion of high-intensity into low-intensity farms., This research (EcoFruit project) was funded through the 2013–2014 BiodivERsA/FACCE-JPI joint call (2014-74), Spanish MinECo (PCIN-2014-145-C02), German BMBF (PT-DLR/BMBF, 01LC1403) and Swedish Research Council Formas (2014-1784) by Formas (2013-934 to M.T.), Stiftelsen Lantbruksforskning (H1256150 to M.P.), INIA (RTA2013-00039-C03-00 to G.A. and M.M.), MinECo/FEDER (CGL2015-68963-C2-2-R to D.G.), FI-AGAUR (to L.R.-B.) and MinECo (RYC-2015-18448 to X.A.).

The success of biological control by natural enemies in agricultural crops relies on an understanding of the trophic interactions between natural enemies, pests and host plants. Top-down and bottom-up trophic effects, together with potential landscape and local-scale factors, may regulate pest populations. For two years, we analyzed codling moth populations (Cydia pomonella), their crop damage and their parasitoid communities in 26 low-input cider apple orchards in northern Spain. Codling moth abundance was estimated from overwintering larvae sampled with cardboard traps on trees, parasitism was estimated from parasitoids emerged from lab-reared moth larvae, and pest damage was assessed in apples before ripening. Codling moth abundance differed between orchards across years, and was positively correlated with apple production and the cover of apple plantations in the surrounding landscape. The effects of the apple production on codling moth abundance suggest bottom-up pest regulation. Apple damage in individual orchards reached 71%, but decreased with apple production, indicating codling moth satiation. Seven parasitoid species were recorded on codling moth larvae. Parasitism rate in individual orchards reached 42.5% of codling moth larvae. The number of parasitized larvae per orchard was positively related to parasitoid richness, but also to codling moth abundance, suggesting simultaneous top-down and bottom-up effects between parasitoids and pest. This study highlights the need to tackle the whole parasitoid-pest-plant system in order to better manage codling moth damage in orchards. The conservation of complementary parasitoid species through biodiversity-friendly actions should be combined with the control of apple production at the orchard- and landscape scale., Funding was provided by FPI fellowships to RMS (INIA, CPD2015-0059) and RP (BES-2016-078260), and through grants INIA-RTA2013-00139-C03-01 and RTA2017-00051-C02-01 (Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (MinECo)) and Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional to MM, PCIN2014-145-C02-02 (MinECo; EcoFruit project BiodivERsA-FACCE2014-74) and CGL2015-68963-C2-2-R (MinECo) to DG. Funding sources had no involvement in study design, collection, analysis or interpretation of data, the writing of the report or the decision to submit the article for publication.

In ecological networks, neutral predictions suggest that species’ interaction frequencies are proportional to their relative abundances. Deviations from neutral predictions thus correspond to interaction preferences (when positive) or avoidances (when negative), driven by nonneutral (e.g., niche-based) processes. Exotic species interact with many partners with which they have not coevolved, and it remains unclear whether this systematically influences the strength of neutral processes on interactions, and how these interaction-level differences scale up to entire networks. To fill this gap, we compared interactions between plants and frugivorous birds at nine forest sites in New Zealand varying in the relative abundance and composition of native and exotic species, with independently sampled data on bird and plant abundances from the same sites. We tested if the strength and direction of interaction preferences differed between native and exotic species. We further evaluated whether the performance of neutral predictions at the site level was predicted by the proportion of exotic interactions in each network from both bird and plant perspectives, and the species composition in each site. We found that interactions involving native plants deviated more strongly from neutral predictions than did interactions involving exotics. This “pickiness” of native plants could be detrimental in a context of global biotic homogenization where they could be increasingly exposed to novel interactions with neutrally interacting mutualists. However, the realization of only a subset of interactions in different sites compensated for the neutrality of interactions involving exotics, so that neutral predictions for whole networks did not change systematically with the proportion of exotic species or species composition. Therefore, the neutral and niche processes that underpin individual interactions may not scale up to entire networks. This shows that seemingly simplistic neutral assumptions entail complex processes and can provide valuable understanding of community assembly or invasion dynamics., JMT is funded by the Bioprotection Centre. ID was funded by the FPI Program-European Social Fund BES2012-052863 and the Mobility Grant EEBB-I-14-08279 within the MinECo/FEDER projects CGL2015-68963-C2-2-R, and PRI-AIBNZ2011-0863 granted to DG. ID is funded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. DBS was funded by a Marsden Fast-Start Grant and a Rutherford Discovery Fellowship (11-UOC-1101 and RDF-13-UOC-003), administered by the Royal Society of New Zealand Te Apārangi.

Abundance and trait-driven processes have both been identified as potential mechanisms in determining the occurrence of species interactions. However, little is known about how these two mechanisms interact to determine the relative frequencies of interactions between species, and thereby species-specific contributions to ecological functions. Here, we evaluate the effect of both species’ abundance and trait-matching on the occurrence of plant-bird seed dispersal interactions in the Cantabrian Range (northern Spain). For two years at fourteen plots, we independently sampled the abundance and diversity of fleshy-fruited plants and frugivores, as well as the consumption of fruits by birds. We quantified trait-matching by applying a food-web approach based on the log-ratios of species traits relevant to seed dispersal and traits related to fruit-handling and foraging-stratum. We fitted multi-level models incorporating phylogenetic relatedness to identify phylogenetically independent effects of species abundance and trait-matching on interaction frequencies. Fitted models showed that species abundances of both plants and birds always had strong positive effects on interaction frequencies. Trait-matching effects associated with fruit-handling were weak, but consistent across years, whereas those derived from foraging stratum varied across years, according to strong interannual changes in species abundance. Our findings reveal that both species abundance and functional traits are required for a mechanistic understanding of species interactions, as well as for predicting species roles in ecosystems under global change., The research was funded by MinECo/FEDER grants CGL2011-28430 and CGL2015-68963-C2-2-R to D.G., and BES2012-052863 and BES-2016-078260 to I.D. and R.P., respectively. R.P. received an Alumni-Grant from Senckenberg University. I.D. is currently funded by the Balearic Government. J.R.P. was supported by BIOINTFOREST funded by “Obra Social la Caixa” and “Fundación Caja Navarra”, under the agreement LCF/PR/PR13/51080004 in the framework of UPNA's “Captación de Talento” program., Peer reviewed

dataset: SeedDispersal_data_Pastures.csv:
It contains data of the resource and forest cover availability, FDis and MPD standardized values for each frugivorous local assemblage, frugivorous bird abundances, and the dispersed seeds by birds, in different sampling plots in woodland pastures. Below we describe the contents of each column:
plot_code: code for plot identity.
year: sampling year.
id_station: code for seed-trap identity.
disp_seeds_m2: dispersed seeds/m2
Forest_cover: forest cover availability in each plot.
Fruit_abundance: resource availability in each plot.
FDis: Trait-based functional diversity estimated as the standardized Functional Dispersion in each local assemblage.
Frug_abundance: abundance of all present frugivorous birds per plot.
MPD: Phylogenetic Diversity estimated as the standardized Mean Pairwise Distance in each local assemblage., dataset: Insectivory_data_Pastures.csv:
It contains data of the resource and forest cover availability, FDis and MPD standardized values for each insectivorous local assemblage, insectivorous bird abundances, and the dispersed seeds by frugivorous birds, in different sampling plots in woodland pastures. Below we describe the contents of each column:
plot_code: code for plot identity
year: sampling year
tree_identity: code for focal tree identity.
Attacked_success: pecked caterpillar.
Intact_failure: intact caterpillar.
n_models: number of caterpillar models placed on each focal tree.
Forest_cover: forest cover availability in each plot.
arthropod_g: resource availability in each plot.
FDis: Trait-based functional diversity estimated as the standardized Functional Dispersion in each local assemblage.
FI_bird_abundance: abundance of all forest insectivorous birds per plot.
MPD: Phylogenetic Diversity estimated as the standardized Mean Pairwise Distance in each local assemblage., dataset: Insectivory_data_Orchards.csv:
It contains data of the resource and forest cover availability, FDis and MPD standardized values for each insectivorous local assemblage, insectivorous bird abundance, and the dispersed seeds by frugivorous birds, in different sampling plots in apple orchards. Below we describe the contents of each column:
plot_code: code for plot identity
year: sampling year
tree_identity: code for focal tree identity
Attacked_success: pecked caterpillar
Intact_failure: intact caterpillar
n_models: number of caterpillar models placed on each focal tree
Forest_cover: forest cover availability in each plot.
arthropod_g: resource availability in each plot.
FDis: Trait-based functional diversity estimated as the standardized Functional Dispersion in each local assemblage.
FI_bird_abundance: abundance of all forest insectivorous birds per plot.
MPD: Phylogenetic Diversity estimated as the standardized Mean Pairwise Distance in each local assemblage., 1) The diversity of traits within animal assemblages has been shown to affect the magnitude of animal-provided ecological functions. However, little is known about how consistent trait diversity effects are across ecological functions and ecosystems. More importantly, the importance of trait diversity in driving ecosystem functioning, relative to other components of biodiversity, has rarely been assessed. It also remains unclear how environmental gradients filter trait diversity and, ultimately, modulate ecological functions.

2) Here we test how different biodiversity components (i.e., trait diversity, phylogenetic diversity and abundance) affect the magnitude of avian seed dispersal and insect predation along large environmental gradients. We sampled frugivorous and insectivorous birds and their ecological functions across gradients of forest cover and fruit and insect abundances in woodland pastures and apple orchards in Northern Spain. We measured 6 morphological traits and compiled phylogenetic information on 43 bird species. We used Structural Equation Models to disentangle the effects of environmental gradients and biodiversity components on ecological functions.

3) We found that different avian functions in the same agroecosystem were controlled by different biodiversity components. While seed dispersal was positively driven by bird abundance in woodland pastures, insect predation responded positively to trait and phylogenetic diversity. The positive effects of trait diversity on insect predation were, on the other hand, consistent across woodland pastures and apple orchards.

4) Our results also pinpointed forest cover and resource availability as filters of the different components of avian diversity, suggesting that environmental gradients condition the effects of biodiversity on avian ecological functions.

5) Our findings reveal variable effects of trait diversity on two different avian ecological functions, but consistent effects on the same function across agroecosystems. Consolidating the generalities of trait diversity effects will require further multi-function studies, as well as a unifying framework for animal-driven functions that integrates the causal links between environmental gradients, the different biodiversity components, and ecological functions., MinECo/FEDER, Award: CGL2015-68963-C2-2-R, MinECo/FEDER, Award: BES-2016-078260, Fundación BBVA, Award: 044-2019 ClaveSER, Peer reviewed