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Community assembly is an integral process in all ecosystems, producing patterns of species distributions, biodiversity, and ecosystem functioning. Environmental filters and colonization history govern the assembly process, but their... more
Community assembly is an integral process in all ecosystems, producing patterns of species distributions, biodiversity, and ecosystem functioning. Environmental filters and colonization history govern the assembly process, but their relative importance varies depending on the study system. Dead wood decomposition is a slow process, allowing decomposer communities to develop within a slowly changing substrate for decades. Despite this, there are few long-term studies of priority effects from colonization history in this ecosystem. In this study, we investigate the importance of insects in early succession of dead wood on the fungal community present one decade later. Sixty aspen trees were killed in two study landscapes, each tree producing one aspen high stump and log. Insects were sampled with flight interception traps during the first 4 years after tree death, and fungal fruiting bodies were registered in year twelve. We found positive priority effects of two fungivorous beetles, ...
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Ancient trees are considered one of the most important habitats for biodiversity in Europe and North America. They support exceptional numbers of specialized species, including a range of rare and endangered wood-living insects. In this... more
Ancient trees are considered one of the most important habitats for biodiversity in Europe and North America. They support exceptional numbers of specialized species, including a range of rare and endangered wood-living insects. In this study, we use a dataset of 105 sites spanning a climatic gradient along the oak range of Norway and Sweden to investigate the importance of temperature and precipitation on beetle species richness in ancient, hollow oak trees. We expected that increased summer temperature would positively influence all wood-living beetle species whereas precipitation would be less important with a negligible or negative impact. Surprisingly, only oak-specialist beetles with a northern distribution increased in species richness with temperature. Few specialist beetles and no generalist beetles responded to the rise of 4°C in summer as covered by our climatic gradient. The negative effect of precipitation affected more specialist species than did temperature, whereas the generalists remained unaffected. In summary, we suggest that increased summer temperature is likely to benefit a few specialist beetles within this dead wood community, but a larger number of specialists are likely to decline due to increased precipitation. In addition, generalist species will remain unaffected. To minimize adverse impacts of climate change on this important community, long-term management plans for ancient trees are important.
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Cucujus cinnaberinus is an obligate saproxylic beetle distributed in Europe and considered as near threatened in its entire range (IUCN red list). Ten polymorphic microsatellites were characterized among 26 and 45 individual samples... more
Cucujus cinnaberinus is an obligate saproxylic beetle distributed in Europe and considered as near threatened in its entire range (IUCN red list). Ten polymorphic microsatellites were characterized among 26 and 45 individual samples obtained from dead trees in the Czech Republic and Norway respectively. All loci were polymorphic in both samples with number of alleles per locus ranged from two to eleven in the Norwegian sample and from two to six in the Czech sample. The genetic difference between the Czech and the Norwegian material were highly significant (P < 0.0001). For several trees the sampled genotypes gave evidence that more than two parents were responsible for the breeding. These microsatellite loci should prove useful in the study of population structure including mate and dispersal patterns for this species.
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ABSTRACT This study investigated the forest history, structural characteristics, the presence of fungal species suggested to indicate ecological continuity in old-growth forest, and the species composition of saproxylic beetles in 30 old... more
ABSTRACT This study investigated the forest history, structural characteristics, the presence of fungal species suggested to indicate ecological continuity in old-growth forest, and the species composition of saproxylic beetles in 30 old forest &#39;&#39;woodland key habitats&#39;&#39; (WKHs), and compared them with production forest in the same age-class in south-eastern Norway. No statistically significant differences in forest characteristics, community of saproxylic beetles or number of red-listed beetles were found between the WKHs and the production forest, probably owing to a combination of profound long-term logging and a lack of will to delineate sufficiently large WKHs in the one area with significantly less forestry impact. The study indicates the advantage of including forest history information in WKH selection where such data exist, and the importance of restoring habitats in heavily exploited forest landscapes.
Research Interests: History, Conservation, Forest, Habitat, Case Study, and 3 moreForestry Sciences, Woodland, and Boreal
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Research Interests: Conservation, Environmental Management, Comparative Study, Endangered Species, Multivariate Analysis, and 12 moreBiological Sciences, Populus, Environmental Sciences, Biological Conservation, Forests, Red List, Community Structure, Animal Conservation, Species Composition, Species Richness, Solar radiation, and Clearcutting
ABSTRACT In this study we investigated hollow oaks (Quercus robur, Q. petrea) situated in open landscapes and in forests in Norway in northern Europe, and compared their importance for rare and threatened beetles (Coleoptera). Old, hollow... more
ABSTRACT In this study we investigated hollow oaks (Quercus robur, Q. petrea) situated in open landscapes and in forests in Norway in northern Europe, and compared their importance for rare and threatened beetles (Coleoptera). Old, hollow oak trees, both in parks and in forests, were extremely rich in red-listed beetles, and hosted a high proportion of threatened species. The proportion of oak associated species and the mean number of red-listed beetle species per tree was similar in the two site types, but rarefaction showed that for a certain number of individuals, oaks in forests had more threatened and near-threatened species than oaks in parks. The species composition also differed between site types: Park oaks had a higher proportion of species associated with hollows and animal nests, whereas in forests, there was a higher proportion of species depending on dead oak wood in general. Four factors were significant in explaining the richness of red-listed beetles in our study: Tree circumference, cavity decay stage, proportion of oak in the surroundings, and coarse woody debris (CWD) in the surroundings. Forest oaks were smaller, but they still trapped a species richness comparable to that of the larger park oaks—probably a result of high amounts of CWD in the surroundings. We show that oaks in open landscapes and oaks in forest have only partly overlapping beetle assemblages and, thus, cannot be substituted in conservation. Planning for conservation of red-listed beetles associated with this key habitat demands a large scale perspective, both in space and time, as the surroundings have important effects on associated threatened and near threatened species.
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Saproxylic insects play an important part in decomposing dead wood in healthy forest ecosystems, but little is known about their role in the aftermath of large-scale forest mortality caused by pest insect outbreaks. We used window traps... more
Saproxylic insects play an important part in decomposing dead wood in healthy forest ecosystems, but little is known about their role in the aftermath of large-scale forest mortality caused by pest insect outbreaks. We used window traps to study short-term changes in the abundance and community structure of saproxylic beetles following extensive mortality of mountain birch in sub-arctic northern Norway caused by an outbreak of geometrid moths. Three to five years after the outbreak, the proportion of obligate saproxylic individuals in the beetle community was roughly 10% higher in forest damaged by the outbreak than in undamaged forest. This was mainly due to two early-successional saproxylic beetle species. Facultative saproxylic beetles showed no consistent differences between damaged and undamaged forest. These findings would suggest a weak numerical response of the saproxylic beetle community to the dead wood left by the outbreak. We suggest that species-specific preferences for...
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Of the stand-level variables, number of logs in late stages of decay was positively related to P. nigrolimitatus presence, while diversity of coarse woody debris was positively related to the abundance of the species. Both the presence... more
Of the stand-level variables, number of logs in late stages of decay was positively related to P. nigrolimitatus presence, while diversity of coarse woody debris was positively related to the abundance of the species. Both the presence and abundance of P. nigrolimitatus was ...
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Habitat use of Bolitophagus reticulatus (L.)(Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae), living in the basidiocarps of Fomes fomentarius (L.) Kickx, was investigated in three forest areas in south-eastern Norway:(1) a continuous, coniferous forest,(2) an... more
Habitat use of Bolitophagus reticulatus (L.)(Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae), living in the basidiocarps of Fomes fomentarius (L.) Kickx, was investigated in three forest areas in south-eastern Norway:(1) a continuous, coniferous forest,(2) an agricultural area with mostly ...