„Spiders of dry grasslands in and around Berlin – diversity, distribution and endangerment“ has been published in Arachnologische Mitteilungen / Arachnology Letters. The article is open access.
We present the first comprehensive list for dry grassland spiders in Berlin and adjacent federal state of Brandenburg with 194 species including 33 endangered species and a new records for Berlin.
Recently, Märkische Entomologische Nachrichten has published two faunistic papers. The first one in on Carabid beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae) of dry grasslands in Berlin (and Brandenburg). At 52 dry grassland sites in Berlin and Brandenburg we sampled 106 species including a new record for Berlin and numerous endangered species. The second one,
Wild bees of dry grasslands in Berlin, summarises bee data from 49 dry grasslands in Berlin. Both papers highlight the importance of urban sites as secondary habitats for rare and endangered invertebrates.
Pilot project started …
… with Johannes Müller from Museum für Naturkunde Berlin on urban ecology and phenotypic expressions in different Berlin populations of the sand lizard Lacerta agilis, including field 3D photogrammetry. In particular, we are keen to detect possible intra-specific trait variations in sand lizard populations along rural-urban gradients.
Biodiversity assessments at full blast
My last post belongs to the past by now – anyway, that means that I moved to my outdoor workplace. We are mapping sand lizard populations and sampling pollinators, moths (and recording bats at the same time) and still ground-dwelling arthropods. We also running an experiments to measure seed predation along urban gradients. Hopefully we are able to start another experiment on pollinator visitation rates soon – so long as the weather is co-operating.
Plants, plant traits and ground-dwelling arthropods
Unfortunately, spring was very cold and rainy but however, we ‚bravely‘ started our field work for the BIBS project some weeks ago. Currently, our team is doing the plant diversity assessments and also pitfall traps are exposed. Moreover, we are measuring plant traits to analyse intraspecific trait variations along the urbanisation gradient – we are going to run these analyses for invertebrate taxa and hopefully sand lizard populations as well – wait and see. In addition, some students are observing phenology of plant species at 30 sites – very labour-intensive. Today I emptied our pitfall traps for the first time and I can’t wait to study our samples in the lab.
Conference talk (in German) in Berlin
„Die Zauneidechse mag es urban. Was bedeutet das für den Artenschutz und die Stadtplanung?“. Meeting of the Brandenburg Berlin herpetologists in Berlin – more information. If you are interested in our studies on urban effects on sand lizard populations, please read our article „The sand lizard moves downtown – habitat analogues for an endangered species in a metropolitan area“ in Urban Ecosystems.
Treffen der Brandenburg-Berliner Feldherpetologen am 18.02.2017 in Berlin, Herzberge (Informationen und Programm).
First field work within the BIBS project finished
We finished the grasshopper sampling last week! More than 60 urban dry grasslands had been sampled during summer and we are now happy to have a first extensive dataset for the BIBS project. In all, we acoustically and visually assessed more than 4000 grasshopper individuals with 22 species – including some very interesting species such as Calliptamus italicus. We are looking forward to first functional diversity analyses in the next few weeks.
Beitrag zur Heuschreckenfauna ausgewählter Trockenrasen in Berlin has been accepted for publication in Märkische Entomologische Nachrichten.
Summary
Grasshoppers of several dry and semi dry grasslands of Berlin have been sampled in 2011 and 2012. The study summarises the results and discusses the records of Calliptamus italicus, Oedipoda caerulescens, Phaneroptera falcata and Sphingonotus caerulans.