Modeling the effects of grassland management intensity on biodiversity

A growing food demand and advanced agricultural techniques increasingly affect farmland ecosystems, threatening invertebrate populations with cascading effects along the food chain upon insectivorous vertebrates. Supporting farmland biodiversity thus optimally requires the delineation of species hotspots at multiple trophic levels to prioritize conservation management. The goal of this study was to investigate the links between grassland management intensity and orthopteran density at the field scale and to upscale this information to the landscape in order to guide management action at landscape scale. More specifically, we investigated the relationships between grassland management intensity, floral indicator species, and orthopteran abundance in grasslands with different land use in the SW Swiss Alps. Field vegetation surveys of indicator plant species were used to generate a management intensity proxy, to which field assessments of orthopterans were related. Orthopteran abundance showed a hump-shaped response to management intensity, with low values in intensified, nutrient-rich grasslands and in nutrient-poor, xeric grasslands, while it peaked in middle-intensity grasslands. Combined with remote-sensed data about grassland gross primary productivity, the above proxy was used to build landscapewide, spatially explicit projections of the potential distribution of orthopteran-rich grasslands as possible foraging grounds for insectivorous vertebrates. This spatially explicit multitrophic approach enables the delineation of focal farmland areas in order to prioritize conservation action

Nidification réussie du Guêpier d’Europe Merops apiaster à près de 1200 m d’altitude en Valais

Successful breeding of the European Bee-eater Merops apiaster at ca 1200 m elevation in Valais (southwestern Swiss Alps) In 2018, the European Bee-eater bred at 1165 m above see level on a South-exposed slope of the Upper Rhône Valais (southwestern Swiss Alps). At least four juveniles fledged, from apparently one single occupied breeding hole. The landscape is dominated by cultivated grasslands and hedges, and surrounded by xeric, sub-Mediterranean oak and pine forests. To the best of our knowledge this represents a new altitudinal record for western Europe outside the Mediterranean basin