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Contributed Talk

Session: : Biodiversity 2

COS 185-3 - Habitat loss and simplification lower arthropod richness but not diversity

Wednesday, August 9, 2023
2:00 PM – 2:15 PM PDT
Location: B110
Abstract: When addressing the effects of habitat loss on biodiversity decline, it is commonly assumed habitat is lost non-selectively. However, habitat loss is frequently aggregated with respect to the producer species comprising the habitat. Theoretically, habitat removal that decreases diversity of species comprising the habitat (habitat simplification) decreases diversity of available resources for organisms at higher trophic levels as well as amount of available habitat. We therefore expect habitat simplification to reduce biodiversity more than habitat loss without simplification. To test this, we experimentally implemented two types of habitat loss at the plant community level and compared arthropod biodiversity between them. In the first type of habitat loss, we reduced habitats by 50% non-selectively, maintaining original relative abundance of plant species and a diverse habitat for arthropods. In the second type of habitat loss, we reduced habitats by 50% selectively, removing all but one common plant species, dramatically simplifying habitat for arthropods. We replicated the common plant species with three species: Asclepias tuberosa, Solidago altissima, or Baptisia alba. While habitat loss with simplification reduced arthropod species richness compared to habitat loss without simplification, neither type of habitat loss affected diversity, measured as effective number of species (ENS), or species evenness compared to controls. Instead, differences in ENS and evenness were explained by the identity of the common plant species. Our results indicate that the quality of remaining habitat, in our case plant species, may be more important for multi-trophic diversity than habitat diversity per se.