The effect of local land use and loss of forests on bats and nocturnal insects.

ABSTRACT: Land-use intensification at local and landscape level poses a serious threat to biodiversity and affects species interactions and ecosystem function. It is thus important to understand how interrelated taxa respond to land-use intensification and to consider the importance of different spatial scales. We investigated whether and how local land-use intensity and landscape features affect the predator-prey interaction of bats and insects. Bats and nocturnal insects were assessed on 50 grassland sites in the Schorfheide-Chorin. We analyzed the effect of local land use and distance to forested areas as a proxy for site accessibility on bats and insects and their biological interaction measured in bat's feeding activity. Insect abundance increased with higher land-use intensity, while size and

SUBMITTER: Treitler JT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4930980 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature