Ring-based versus disc-based separation of spatial scales: a case study on the impact of arable land proportions on invertebrates in freshwater streams

Christine Schneider, Klemens Ekschmitt, Volkmar Wolters, Klaus Birkhofer

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    Abstract

    The impact of different land-use types on
    species is traditionally estimated by correlating
    landscape proportions recorded in buffer areas around
    focal points with species data observed at these sites.
    If a high proportion of a specific land-use type exists
    within a small radius, it will be accumulated in larger
    buffers and may confound the interpretation at larger
    scales. We sampled freshwater invertebrates in ten
    streams using cages with artificial substrate and
    compared the effects of arable land proportions
    calculated in disc-shaped buffers of increasing radius
    versus areas calculated from non-overlapping rings of
    increasing radius. We hypothesize that (1) the
    accumulative disc-based approach leads to confounding
    effects across increasing buffer size and that (2)
    the use of ring-based methods facilitates the identification
    of relevant scales for conservation measures.
    The abundance of crustaceans showed a positive
    relationship with arable land proportions, but Plecoptera
    abundance and the taxonomic richness of
    Ephemeroptera and Plecoptera decreased with
    increasing arable land proportions in the surrounding
    landscape. Our results further support the presence of
    confounding effects in disc-based analyses, as correlations
    between arable land proportions and Crustacea,
    or Plecoptera, respectively, were affected by the
    accumulation of small-scale area proportions. The
    distance at which arable land proportions significantly
    affected benthic fauna in freshwater streams
    was consistently shorter if calculated from rings
    rather than from discs. Although an a priori definition
    of ring width introduces new challenges, a combined
    use of disc- and ring-based techniques for the
    estimation of land-use effects may substantially
    improve the realization of conservation and protection
    measures in terrestrial and aquatic systems.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)351-356
    JournalAquatic Ecology
    Volume45
    Issue number3
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2011

    Subject classification (UKÄ)

    • Ecology

    Free keywords

    • Arthropod diversity
    • Crustacea
    • EPT taxa
    • Landscape analysis
    • Land-use type
    • Multi-scale analysis
    • Spatial analysis
    • Spatial memory

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