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Local biodiversity can be expected to be similar worldwide if environmental conditions are similar. Here, we hypothesize that tropical ant communities with different types of regional species pools but at similar habitat types in Brazil and Indonesia show similar diversity patterns at multiple spatial scales, when comparing (1) the relative contribution of alpha and beta diversity to gamma diversi
The ecosystem services (ES) concept refers to benefits that humanity receives from nature. Investigating how this concept has been embraced within urban planning is important when assessing the awareness of human dependence on natural functions and the potential for the ES concept to increase this awareness. We analyzed planning documents from three small and three large municipalities in southern
The conversion of tropical rainforest to agricultural systems such as oil palm alters biodiversity across a large range of interacting taxa and trophic levels. Yet, it remains unclear how direct and cascading effects of land-use change simultaneously drive ecological shifts. Combining data from a multi-taxon research initiative in Sumatra, Indonesia, we show that direct and cascading land-use effe
Herbivory on liverworts is rarely reported. We studied the effects of feeding by larvae of the sciarid fly Scatopsciara cunicularius on the growth of the thalloid liverwort Marchantia polymorpha at two different constant temperatures, 12°C and 22°C. Larvae reared at the lower temperature fed slower and over a longer period of time, which resulted in more damage and a greater reduction in the growt
Most animals, including aquatic crustacean zooplankton, perform strong avoidance movements when exposed to a threat, such as ultraviolet radiation (UVR). We here show that the genera Daphnia and Bosmina instantly adjust their vertical position in the water in accordance with the present UVR threat, i.e., seek refuge in deeper waters, whereas other taxa show less response to the threat. Moreover, D
Tropical agroforests are diverse systems where several predator groups shape animal communities and plant-arthropod interactions. Ants, birds and bats in particular can reduce herbivore numbers and thereby increase crop yield. However, the relative importance of these groups, whether they interact, and how this interaction is affected by management and landscape context, is poorly understood. We j
Tropical lowland rainforests are increasingly threatened by the expansion of agriculture and the extraction of natural resources. In Jambi Province, Indonesia, the interdisciplinary EFForTS project focuses on the ecological and socio-economic dimensions of rainforest conversion to jungle rubber agroforests and monoculture plantations of rubber and oil palm. Our data confirm that rainforest transfo
Tropical forest loss and transformation to agroecosystems have serious impacts on biodiversity, associated ecosystem services and the livelihood of local people. The high crop plant biodiversity and low intensity management in many homegardens could play an important role in the preservation of biodiversity in modified landscapes, as well as sustain food security of low income households. In this
Smallholder-dominated agricultural mosaic landscapes are highlighted as model production systems that deliver both economic and ecological goods in tropical agricultural landscapes, but trade-offs underlying current land-use dynamics are poorly known. Here, using the most comprehensive quantification of land-use change and associated bundles of ecosystem functions, services and economic benefits t
Important intermediate ecosystem services (ES) such as crop pollination and biological control of pests, which underpin the final ES agricultural yields, are mediated by mobile organisms that depend on availability of habitat and its arrangement in the landscape. It has been suggested that landscape-scale management (LSM) of habitat in a multi-farm setting results in higher provisioning of such ES
Plant size has been hypothesized to be a major driver of biotic interactions. However, it is little understood how plant size affects plant mutualists vs. antagonists and the plant's resulting reproductive success. We established a common garden experiment covering an interspecific plant size gradient (from 10 to 130 cm height) across 21 annual Brassicaceae species, thereby standardizing features
Oil palm expansion results in a loss of biodiversity and associated ecosystem services. However, there are factors that influence the severity of these impacts and enhancing biodiversity within plantations is important. In the present study, we examined the role of epiphytes for supporting arthropod communities in oil palm plantations in Sumatra, Indonesia. We considered the effects of landscape c
Aim The impact of multiple stressors on biodiversity is one of the most pressing questions in ecology and biodiversity conservation. Here we critically assess how often and efficiently two main drivers of global change have been simultaneously integrated into research, with the aim of providing practical solutions for better integration in the future. We focus on the integration of climate change
Forest degradation, forest fires, and wildlife poaching have devastated biodiversity in Indonesia. To assess the impact of forest degradation and the potential for recovery, we used birds as a proxy for biodiversity and assessed density estimates (hereafter density) in the degraded lowland forest of Harapan Rainforest Ecosystem Restoration Concession (HRF) in Sumatra. In this study, a total of 149
We argue that the current system of agri-environment management in the European Common Agricultural Policy is ineffective at conserving biodiversity in part because it promotes fragmentation instead of collaboration of actors, thus hindering coordinated biodiversity management. Actor fragmentation is reinforced by the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in three ways: (1) through targeting individual
Presence of insects in agricultural habitat is affected by the surrounding circumstances such as the complexity and structure of landscape. Landscape structure is often formed as a consequence of the fragmentation of semi-natural habitat, which can negatively affect species richness and abundance of insects. This study was aimed to study the effect of complexity and structure of landscape on the d
We have built a system dynamics model, WORLD6, that takes into account population, energy extraction, production and need, aspects social behaviour, material and metals recycling and important links to the economy. The model is ground-truthed by comparing with actual supply per person from 1900 till 2015 and run until 2400. Primary scarcity metrics are supply per person and year and stock-in-use p
Agricultural intensification is one of the main causes for the current biodiversity crisis. While reversing habitat loss on agricultural land is challenging, increasing the farmland configurational heterogeneity (higher field border density) and farmland compositional heterogeneity (higher crop diversity) has been proposed to counteract some habitat loss. Here, we tested whether increased farmland
