Land use change is a major cause of biodiversity decline. However, while the effects of land use on biodiversity is well-established for some taxa, we still know very little about its effect on others, as well as how genetic versus species diversity responds to land use change. Also, we often do not know how the diversities of different taxa are interrelated, whether particular taxa can serve as indicators of biodiversity change, and to what extent land use change can have cascading effects across trophic levels.
A recently established large-scale and long-term platform for functional biodiversity research in Germany now allows to comprehensively address these important questions. The Biodiversity Exploratories (www.biodiversity-exploratories.de) are a hierarchical network of standardized field plots in grasslands and forests of different management types and intensities. On these plots, hundreds of ecological researchers are currently studying biodiversity from the genetic to the landscape level, and from soil organisms to plants, insects, birds and mammals.
Results/Conclusions
A first synthesis of the results of these different research groups shows that while the diversities of some groups are significantly correlated, many others are not, and that different taxa can show contrasting patterns of response to land use change. For instance, while pastures generally support greater plant diversity than meadows, but fertilization consistently decreases plant diversity in grasslands, the effects of these land use types on insects are quite heterogeneous and depend on which group of insects one is focusing on. While forest management generally has a significant effect on bird diversity, grassland management has not. Joint research platforms such as the Biodiversity Exploratories, which allow to link the results and expertise of many different researchers, are an indispensable tool for understanding biodiversity change in real landscapes.
