Loss of functional groups should be more severe when functional richness is already low from the start.
We observed a strong change in the community composition and a severe decline in species richness.
We captured 546 birds using 35 12 m mist nets in woodland that exhibit severe reductions in species richness and density of invertebrates and vertebrates [27] in eight different sites around Chernobyl, Ukraine (Fig. 1) during 25 May – 5 June 2010.
If so, this makes previous clone library-based richness estimates severe underestimations; (ii) the statistical error of previous richness estimates may be too large, which cannot be assessed due to a lack of good confidence intervals; [ 36] abundance-based richness estimates may not reflect the true community richness or relative species abundance in a sample but rather the PCR-amplicon richness.
Habitat loss and fragmentation in agricultural landscapes lead to severe declines of abundance and richness of many insect species in the remaining isolated semi-natural habitats.
A late spring frost decreased abundance and species richness of caterpillars, while a severe drought impacted adult lepidopterans, depressing species richness in patch cut stands to a greater degree than in control or shelterwood cut stands.
Specifically, we addressed the following questions: 1) did thinning (here, by 30% of stand volume) in an old-growth plantation increase understory vegetation cover, biomass, species richness, and species diversity under severe deer grazing pressure?
However, if the trend of increasing areas of khat and Eucalyptus would lead to decreases in shade coffee there is a risk for severe erosion of tree density and species richness across these landscapes with cascading effects on associated biodiversity.
In the coastal reaches of the German Bight, severe winters have distinct impacts on species richness [30].
At current densities, elephants are having a severe impact on plant community structure and species richness in the Addo Elephant National Park (AENP), Eastern Cape, South Africa.
