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BETA-FOR

@betafor.bsky.social

...we investigate ecosystem functioning and biodiversity 🦉🐞🐝 in a real-world experiment 🌳 | led by @cofeuniwue.bsky.social | DFG-funded FOR5375 I https://www.uni-wuerzburg.de/for5375/

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Department of Animal Ecology and Tropical Biology (Zoology III)@ecoresearchzoo3.bsky.social · last mo.

📃🕸🕷 Check out this recent publication by our PhD candidate Jean-Léonard Stör and @juliarothacher.bsky.social from @cofeuniwue.bsky.social 🕷🕸! @betafor.bsky.social

Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg@uni-wuerzburg.de · last mo.

Spiders prefer dense forests 🕷️🌲 A University of Würzburg study @animalecology.bsky.social shows: more forest gaps don’t mean more diversity—spider diversity actually drops. The reason: the missing canopy as key habitat. #forest #biodiversity 📷: Louis Puille ➡️ go.uniwue.de/animal-ecology

Macro photograph of a white goldenrod crab spider (Misumena vatia) on an oxeye daisy. The spider sits with its front legs outstretched, holding a dark, wasp-like insect that it has captured and gripped with its mouthparts. Its rounded, pale yellowish-white abdomen provides excellent camouflage among the white petals. The yellow center of the daisy is softly blurred in the background. The image illustrates the hunting strategy of this ambush predator: remaining motionless on flowers until a pollinating insect comes within reach, then seizing it in a lightning-fast attack.
Julia Rothacher@juliarothacher.bsky.social · 3mo ago

New paper out @currentbiology.bsky.social! Led by Clara Wild we show that restoring heterogeneity in forests increases bat and bird diversity. 🧪🍁 Interestingly mechanisms differ between taxa 🐦🦇 and diversity facets. @cofeuniwue.bsky.social @betafor.bsky.social

Restoring structural complexity in temperate forests increases bat and bird diversity

Wild et al. show in a large-scale experiment that increasing forest structural complexity enhances bat and bird diversity by separating within- and between-patch contributions to landscape diversity, ...

cell.com

BETA-FOR@betafor.bsky.social · last mo.

Our new paper exploring arthropod communities in different temperature "pockets" from the forest floor to the canopy is out! Nighttime temperature was important in driving arthropod community similarity and even had an impact on forest affinity..! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Three-dimensional temperature variations drive arthropod communities in temperate forests

In European production forests, the structure of the canopy is changing dynamically due to logging and natural disturbances. The resulting greater ope…

sciencedirect.com

Julia Rothacher@juliarothacher.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Fascinating new insights on the forest volatilome! 🍁🧪 Led by Lena Carlson we identify deadwood as a main driver of VOC beta-diversity, linked to the diversity of beetles. 🪲 @betafor.bsky.social @ecoresearchzoo3.bsky.social

The invisible heterogeneity of forests—β-diversity of volatiles - Landscape Ecology

Context Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) create invisible chemical landscapes that influence ecosystem processes. Yet whether VOC β-diversity (i.e., variability in VOC composition between patches) responds to structural heterogeneity and reflects silvicultural habitat management remains unclear. Objectives In a large field experiment, we quantified how enhanced structural beta complexity (ESBC) affects VOC β-diversity patterns and investigated potential drivers and ecological effects in temperate production forests. Methods We sampled VOCs in ambient forest air using Tenax/Carboxen adsorbent traps at forest floor and 1 m heights across 234 treatment and control forest patches in six German regions. We analyzed VOCs via thermal desorption-gas chromatography mass-spectrometry (TD-GCMS) and examined environmental drivers including deadwood characteristics, canopy cover, tree species dissimilarity, and herb layer dissimilarity. We tested potential ecological relevance by analyzing saproxylic beetle community responses. Results VOC β-diversity increased significantly at 1 m height in heterogeneous forests compared to homogeneous forests, but we found no significant change at the forest floor. Deadwood volume and deadwood structural diversity, rather than canopy openness, were identified as the main drivers of increasing VOC β-diversity. Dissimilarity in beetle community composition was associated with VOC β-diversity, but only for forest floor VOCs, suggesting these chemical patterns may correlate with variables beetles respond to. Conclusions Our findings suggest that volatile β-diversity represents an overlooked dimension of habitat heterogeneity, one that creates invisible chemical heterogeneity influencing inter- and intra-species interactions and ecosystem processes. We demonstrate that enhancing forest heterogeneity through deadwood retention increases both structural heterogeneity and volatile β-diversity.

link.springer.com

Julia Rothacher@juliarothacher.bsky.social · 4mo ago

New paper on metacommunity dynamics out! 📃🍁 Led by Oliver Mitesser we show that habitat heterogeneity shifts communities from patch-dynamics toward mass effects and species sorting using beetles as focal taxon. 🐞😍 @betafor.bsky.social @cofeuniwue.bsky.social onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Forest Heterogeneity by Chain Saw: How Between‐Patch Variation in Old Growth Attributes Changes the Metacommunities of Beetles

Metacommunity theory has expanded our understanding of how spatial dynamics and local interactions influence species communities, but we lack empirical studies specifically in terrestrial habitats te...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Johanna Asch@johannaasch.bsky.social · 6mo ago

New paper out in @jappliedecology.bsky.social! We investigated how forest structural heterogeneity and climate influence temperate dung beetles in production forests. 🪲

Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg@uni-wuerzburg.de · 6mo ago

Canopy openings can harm the biodiversity of dung #beetles 🪲: Scientists of the University of Würzburg examined 234 areas in eleven #forests across Germany. Rising temperatures exacerbate the problem. ➡️ www.uni-wuerzburg.de/en/news-and-... 📸 Johanna Asch

Conservation Biology and Forest Ecology@cofeuniwue.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Congratulations to our postdoc Soumen on his new publication! 🎉🌳 In German beech forests, canopy gap and deadwood enrichment reduced insect damage but stressed trees at low elevations, while the opposite happened higher up. 👉 Local climate makes the difference. 📖 doi.org/10.1111/1365...

Elevation reverses the effects of forest structure on folivory and leaf asymmetry

Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

doi.org

Claudiki@claudiki.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Happy to share that our paper is out in @jappliedecology.bsky.social 😄 Experimentally increasing structural heterogeneity in forest landscapes (deadwood + canopy gaps) boosts taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity of hoverflies 🪰🌳 besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Experimental enhancement of structural heterogeneity in forest landscapes promotes multidimensional hoverfly diversity

Our results provide the first experimental evidence that enhancing structural heterogeneity at the landscape scale can restore multidimensional hoverfly diversity in temperate forests. They underscor...

besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

BETA-FOR@betafor.bsky.social · 6mo ago

We are happy to announce that we will continue investigating interesting topics around forest management and biodiversity! If you like to work in an interdisciplinary team and are interested in forest ecology, please have a look at our exciting new opportunities: www.greenjobs.de/stellenanzei...

4 PhD positions and 2 Postdoc positions (respective place of work in the text) in forest [...]

Julius-Maximilians University Würzburg (JMU) and its partner Universities Georg-August-University of Göttingen (GAUG), Leipzig University (UL), University of Bayreuth (UB), Universität Bremen (UB), Un...

greenjobs.de

BETA-FOR@betafor.bsky.social · 8mo ago

New study out @avianbiology.bsky.social 📃 Along our #BETAFOR elevational gradient 🗻 forest tits adjust their nest construction to macroclimatic conditions to maintain successful breeding as environmental conditions change.🐦🌳 Read it here: doi.org/10.1002/jav....

Nest mass in forest tits (Paridae) increases with elevation and decreasing body mass, promoting reproductive success

Based on the concept of the extended phenotype, bird nest characteristics can serve as indicators for adaptations to changing environmental conditions. We examined how the nest mass of three cavity-n...

doi.org

BETA-FOR@betafor.bsky.social · 9mo ago

New paper out 🌱📄: More light in canopy gaps 🌤️ does not offset the loss of tree diversity caused by roe deer browsing 🦌. In paired exclosure experiments, roe deer browsing cut tree diversity by half🌳. Read it here: besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Light and ungulate browsing interact in shaping future woody plant diversity through natural regeneration

Our results provide strong evidence that in the current context of increasing tree mortality and subsequent light availability, roe deer act as a keystone species. It is crucial to implement browsing....

besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

BETA-FOR@betafor.bsky.social · 12mo ago

Ein kürzlich erschienener Fernsehbeitrag gibt Rückblicke auf das Anlegen unserer Experimentierflächen im Uniwald 🌳🍁 @uni-wuerzburg.de, Einblicke in die spannende Methodenvielfalt, die in unserem Projekt zum Einsatz kommt 🎤🎵📸🔬 und beleuchtet erste Ergebnisse. 🦉🐞🐝🦌 #BETAFOR #biodiversity

Wie wird Artenvielfalt gefördert? Forschung zu Bayerns Wäldern streamen | Joyn

Gut ein Drittel des Freistaats ist bewaldet – doch nur ein Bruchteil gilt als naturnah. Wie kann die Artenvielfalt gestärkt werden? Bayerns Forscher suchen im Rahmen des Projektes „Beta-FOR“ nach neue...

joyn.de

BETA-FOR@betafor.bsky.social · last yr.

New paper out! 📃 Enhanced structural complexity in forests has limited effects on #soil abiotic properties, but #microbial activity and biomass respond site-specifically. Soil moisture and understory growth link to microbial functions. 💧🧫🌳🍁 Read it here: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Inconsistent short-term effects of enhanced structural complexity on soil microbial properties across German forests

Structural and biotic homogenization can result from forestry practices lacking promotion of canopy gaps and deadwood. This can lead to biodiversity l…

sciencedirect.com