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Julia Rothacher

@juliarothacher.bsky.social

Dr. rer. nat. | University of Würzburg | impacts of land use 🌳🌲 and (micro)climate🌡on arthropod diversity | 🧡 for 🐦‍⬛🦇 &🐞

21 Posts593 Follower330 Folgt
Julia Rothacher@juliarothacher.bsky.social · 4d ago

Nice to see our #spider study featured on the AZ animals blog! 🕷🕸🌳🍁 @ecoresearchzoo3.bsky.social @cofeuniwue.bsky.social a-z-animals.com/articles/for...

Forest Spiders Reveal the Hidden Cost of “Helpful” Sunlight

Conservation efforts to let more sunlight into managed forests have proven remarkably effective at boosting biodiversity, but a new study reveals that at least one group of creatures pays a steep pric...

a-z-animals.com

Macroecology lab @unipotsdam@zurelllab.bsky.social · 4w ago

🎉 Congrats to Raya Keuth for new paper in @natecoevo.nature.com: IUCN Red List approaches can underestimate climate-related extinction risk for range shifting species, and we highlight opportunities to improve risk assessments. 🌍🌿 doi.org/10.1038/s415... #Ecology #ClimateChange #Biodiversity

Models used for Red List assessments underestimate climate-related extinction risk of range-shifting species - Nature Ecology & Evolution

Climate change is a threat to many species. Here the authors show that species’ range dynamics determine the ability of correlative and process-based models to predict extinction risk under climate ch...

doi.org

Olivia Bernauer, PhD@oliviabernauer.bsky.social · last mo.

Pleased to share our latest paper on pollinator thermoregulation and microclimate use is now out! 🐝🦋🪰 Pollinators dynamically track desirable temperatures in both natural and artificial microclimates. kwnsfk27.r.eu-west-1.awstrack.me/L0/https:%2F...

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kwnsfk27.r.eu-west-1.awstrack.me

Gopal Murali@gopalmurali.bsky.social · last mo.

🚨New paper🚨 For decades, it was widely assumed tropical species would be hit hardest by #ClimateChange. Turns out climate-related local #extinctions are already more frequent among temperate species. Read our new study 🧵 @natclimate.nature.com doi.org/10.1038/s415... #BiodiversityLoss #SciSky

Temperate local extinctions from climate change are outpacing tropical extinctions - Nature Climate Change

The authors analyse global-scale resurvey data for 5,151 species to reveal the sensitivity of tropical versus temperate species to climate change. They show significantly higher frequencies of local e...

doi.org

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 · 2mo ago

Great new paper led by Sophie Horlebein @basicapplecol.bsky.social 📄 We exposed #carrion of 10 different species in a low mountain range ecosystem and monitored who showed up for the feast.🦠🐞🪰🐾

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Conservation Biology and Forest Ecology@cofeuniwue.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Congrats to our PhD student Sophie Horlebein on the publication of her new paper! 🎉 🐭🦊Small and medium-sized carcasses support high landscape-scale diversity and contribute disproportionately to biodiversity conservation. 📃Check it out! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Felix Neff@felixneff.bsky.social · 2mo ago

📄Out now 📄: 90-year trends in Switzerland show declines in butterfly and saproxylic beetle richness around the mid-20th century, linked to agricultural mechanisation. Some groups have recovered in recent decades, especially warm-adapted species. Specialised and cold-adapted species remained low.🦋🪲

A combined figure with figure panels from the publication. One panel (panel a) showing the trends in Switzerland-wide relative richness of butterflies and saproxylic beetles, with clear declines of butterflies until the 1980s and declines followed by increases for the saproxylic beetles. The other panel (panel b) shows trends of relative species richness for the two insect groups divided by different traits. In the upper part of the figure, groups are built based on the habitat specialisation of the species and it is evident in both groups, that habitat specialists declined strongest. In the lower part of the figure, groups are built based on temperature niche of the species and it is evident that while warm-adapted species have declined strongest until the 1980s, they have clearly reversed their trends and are now increasing strongly.A photo of Lycaena virgaureae, a species with specialised food resources that has mostly disappeared from the Swiss lowlands in the last 90 yearsA photo of Aromia moschata, a longhorn beetle that has become rare in the mid 20th century, but which has increased in recent decades
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

Biodiversity Exploratories@bexplo.bsky.social · 3mo ago

🚨 New BE paper on #forest #microclimates!🌲 Across 11 years and 149 plots in Germany, variability was driven mainly by precipitation and outside temperatures -not by low- to medium-intensity timber harvest. #Climate extremes may pose the greatest #biodiversity risk.🌐 link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Impacts of forest management on the inter-annual variability of forest microclimate - European Journal of Forest Research

The microclimatic conditions within forests have great importance for biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. Consequently, understanding how management and associated changes in forest structure driv...

link.springer.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

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

Really grateful to have taken part in this vibrant and inspiring spring school surrounded by so many motivated minds in bioacoustics!🎙🎶

Functional Agrobiodiversity & Agroecology@funcagroeco.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Great start to the BioIntAkt Spring School! 🐝🐦🐟 Day 1 kicked off with an inspiring poster session covering passive acoustic monitoring across forests, agroecosystems, aquatic systems, and computational challenges. Thanks to everyone for the relaxed, inspiring atmosphere and great exchange 💚

Johanna Asch@johannaasch.bsky.social · 5mo ago

5 years ago I joined a field work campaign in the stunningly beautiful Swedish primary forests, still one of my all-time favourite fieldwork experiences!🌲🌿 Now there is a new study out lead by Didac Pascual and Anders Ahlström from Lund University www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Higher carbon storage in primary than secondary boreal forests in Sweden

Boreal forests provide considerable global land carbon storage and uptake, but they are being rapidly transformed to managed secondary forests, with poorly quantified implications for ecosystem carbon...

science.org

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

Katrin Heer@katrinheer.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Postdoctoral position in Forest Genetics at @uni-freiburg.de with a focus on local adaptation and/or stress reaction of trees. The position combines research and teaching (4 SWS), and offers the opportunity to develop an independent research profile (4+ years).

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