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. 2024 Oct;93(10):1510-1523.
doi: 10.1111/1365-2656.14164. Epub 2024 Aug 16.

Vegetation structure and climate shape mountain arthropod distributions across trophic levels

Camille Martinez-Almoyna  1 , Irene Calderòn-Sanou  1 , Clément Lionnet  1 , Ludovic Gielly  1 , Frédéric Boyer  1 , Paul Dufour  1 , Lily Dunyach  1 , Christian Miquel  1 , Marc Ohlmann #  1 , Jérôme Poulenard  2 , Julien Renaud  1 , Amélie Saillard  1 , Sara Si-Moussi  1 , Ruth Stephan  1 , Mary Varoux  1 ; Orchamp Consortium; Tamara Münkemüller  1 , Wilfried Thuiller  1
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Vegetation structure and climate shape mountain arthropod distributions across trophic levels

Camille Martinez-Almoyna et al. J Anim Ecol. 2024 Oct.

Abstract

Arthropods play a vital role in ecosystems; yet, their distributions remain poorly understood, particularly in mountainous regions. This study delves into the modelling of the distribution of 31 foliar arthropod genera in the French Alps, using a comprehensive approach encompassing multi-trophic sampling, community DNA metabarcoding and random forest models. The results underscore the significant importance of vegetation structure, such as herbaceous vegetation density, and forest density and heterogeneity, along with climate, in shaping the distributions of most arthropods. These responses to environmental gradients are consistent across trophic groups, with the exception of nectarivores, whose distributions are more sensitive to landscape structure and water availability. By leveraging community DNA metabarcoding, this study sheds light on the understudied drivers of arthropod distributions, emphasizing the importance of modelling across diverse trophic groups to anticipate arthropod responses to global change.

Keywords: French Alps; bulk DNA metabarcoding; diets; insects; random forest; species distribution model.

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References

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