Search

Shiitake mushroom (Lentinula edodes) is one of the most commonly consumed mushrooms and an important forest product in Japan. In outdoor log cultivation of shiitake, colonization of logs by wild fu...

Recent advances in DNA analysis allow us to identify an unprecedented number of insect samples collected by mass sampling techniques such as insect traps. In these circumstances, a preservative that can be applied from trap to storage is necessary to prevent degradation of DNA before analysis and save on the cost of labor for collecting insects from traps. Propylene glycol has a prominent feature as a trap solution. We aimed to examine the DNA preservability of 98% propylene glycol at 2 weeks and more than 6 months after initial collection in comparison with 99.5% ethanol, which is commonly used for storage of specimens for genetic analysis. We compared amplification performance of PCR targeting a specific region of the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) gene in the orders Hymenoptera, Diptera, and Coleoptera using two extraction methods varying in extraction efficiency. Even after 6 months, more than 75% of samples were recognized to have succeeded in PCR amplification irrespective of preservatives by the extraction method with higher extraction efficiency. It suggested that mitochondrial DNA was preserved in both solutions. However, dim bands in the electrophoreses of PCR products increased with time in extracts by another method with lower extraction efficiency. In Diptera and Coleoptera, the rate of dim bands increased more rapidly for ethanol‐preserved than for propylene glycol‐preserved specimens, indicating higher DNA preservability of propylene glycol over time for these taxa. On the other hand, in Hymenoptera, the preservatives did not affect PCR amplification performance. Considering its safer characteristics and high DNA preservability in a wide range of taxa, propylene glycol can be a promising solution from trapping of insects to storage for genetic analysis.

We investigated the ecological traits of emerging adults and the boring density in

Response diversity to environmental change among species is important for the maintenance of ecosystem services, but response diversity to changes in multiple environmental parameters is largely unexplored. Here, we examined how insect visitations to buckwheat flowers differ among species groups in response to changes in multiple weather variables and landscape structures.We found differences in responses to changes in weather conditions among insect taxonomic groups visiting buckwheat flowers. Specifically, beetles, butterflies, and wasps were more active in sunny and/or high-temperature conditions, whereas ants and flies showed the opposite pattern. Furthermore, responses to weather conditions differed between large and small insects, which agreed with the expectation that optimal temperature for insect activity has a positive association with body size. Response diversity per se was also diverse. For instance, large insects were responsive to temperatures more than small insects while smaller insects were responsive to sunshine duration more than large insects. Responses to spatial variables also differed; large insects were more abundant in fields with surrounding forests and mosaic habitats, whereas small insects were not. We suggest that the “diversity” in “response diversity,” which is a higher-order response diversity, should be a focus of future studies of the biodiversity–ecosystem service relationships.

2017-2018 Belmont Forum and BiodivERsA joint call for research proposals, under the BiodivScen ERA-Net COFUND programme, and with the funding organisations AEI, NWO, ECCyT and NSF Funding information, Allen-Perkins A, Magrach A, Dainese M, Garibaldi LA, Kleijn D, Rader R, Reilly JR, Winfree R, Lundin O, McGrady CM, Brittain C, Biddinger DJ, Artz DR, Elle E, Hoffman G, Ellis JD, Daniels J, Gibbs J, Campbell JW, Brokaw J, Wilson JK, Mason K, Ward KL, Gundersen KB, Bobiwash K, Gut L, Rowe LM, Boyle NK, Williams NM, Joshi NK, Rothwell N, Gillespie RL, Isaacs R, Fleischer SJ, Peterson SS, Rao S, Pitts-Singer TL, Fijen T, Boreux V, Rundlöf M, Viana BF, Klein AM, Smith HG, Bommarco R, Carvalheiro LG, Ricketts TH, Ghazoul J, Krishnan S, Benjamin FE, Loureiro J, Castro S, Raine NE, de Groot GA, Horgan FG, Hipólito J, Smagghe G, Meeus I, Eeraerts M, Potts SG, Kremen C, García D, Miñarro M, Crowder DW, Pisanty G, Mandelik Y, Vereecken NJ, Leclercq N, Weekers T, Lindstrom SAM, Stanley DA, Zaragoza-Trello C, Nicholson CC, Scheper J, Rad C, Marks EAN, Mota L, Danforth B, Park M, Bezerra ADM, Freitas BM, Mallinger RE, Oliveira da Silva F, Willcox B, Ramos DL, D da Silva E Silva F, Lázaro A, Alomar D, González-Estévez MA, Taki H, Cariveau DP, Garratt MPD, Nabaes Jodar DN, Stewart RIA, Ariza D, Pisman M, Lichtenberg EM, Schüepp C, Herzog F, Entling MH, Dupont YL, Michener CD, Daily GC, Ehrlich PR, Burns KLW, Vilà M, Robson A, Howlett B, Blechschmidt L, Jauker F, Schwarzbach F, Nesper M, Diekötter T, Wolters V, Castro H, Gaspar H, Nault BA, Badenhausser I, Petersen JD, Tscharntke T, Bretagnolle V, Willis Chan DS, Chacoff N, Andersson GKS, Jha S, Colville JF, Veldtman R, Coutinho J, Bianchi FJJA, Sutter L, Albrecht M, Jeanneret P, Zou Y, Averill AL, Saez A, Sciligo AR, Vergara CH, Bloom EH, Oeller E, Badano EI, Loeb GM, Grab H, Ekroos J, Gagic V, Cunningham SA, Åström J, Cavigliasso P, Trillo A, Classen A, Mauchline AL, Montero-Castaño A, Wilby A, Woodcock BA, Sidhu CS, Steffan-Dewenter I, Vogiatzakis IN, Herrera JM, Otieno M, Gikungu MW, Cusser SJ, Nauss T, Nilsson L, Knapp J, Ortega-Marcos JJ, González JA, Osborne JL, Blanche R, Shaw RF, Hevia V, Stout J, Arthur AD, Blochtein B, Szentgyorgyi H, Li J, Mayfield MM, Woyciechowski M, Nunes-Silva P, Halinski de Oliveira R, Henry S, Simmons BI, Dalsgaard B, Hansen K, Sritongchuay T, O'Reilly AD, Chamorro García FJ, Nates Parra G, Magalhães Pigozo C, Bartomeus I

The fungus gnats, Bradysia impatiens (larvae and adults), were either separately or concurrently exposed for 6 h to growing spores of Fusarium oxysporum and Pythium aphanidermatum, and a powder formulation of Clonostachys rosea on leaf discs of strawberry to determine their capacity in laboratory trials for vectoring these three microbes. We determined the number of spores for each fungus species that individual larval or adult fungus gnats carried or ingested. We also assessed the capacity of fungus gnats to carry or ingest the three kinds of spores simultaneously, and to evaluate suppression of growth of F. oxysporum and P. aphanidermatum by C. rosea (a known biological control agent against numerous plant pathogens) 14 days after sampling. When the fungus gnats were exposed to single fungus, larvae ingested about 21 times more spores than did adults. The adults carried twice as many spores externally as did the larvae. When the insects were exposed simultaneously to all three kinds of spores both larvae and adults carried externally more or less the same numbers of each kind of spore. However, when both larvae and adults were exposed to all three kinds of spore simultaneously, the larvae had ingested about ten times the number of spores as the adults. When ingested mixtures of spores were cultured, Clonostachys reduced Fusarium and Pythium sporulation only when the spores were ingested by larvae. That result reflects that adults ingested very few spores of the three microbes, probably too few for suppression of Fusarium or Pythium by Chlonostachys to be expressed. Our results indicate that both larval and adult B. impatiens are indeed likely effective vectors of infections of both F. oxysporum and P. aphanidermatum but may be able to be exploited to vector C. rosea alone and simultaneously for potential control of the two pathogens.

Stable production of crops depends on pollination services provided by animals. Although crop production is more stable in pollinator-independent crops than in pollinator-dependent crops at the global scale, the situation at the local scale is unknown. Here, we investigated the relationship between pollinator dependence and production stability of 40 crops in Japan and show that the global relationship does not apply at the local scale, i.e., most pollinator-dependent crops showed stable production and most pollinator-independent showed instable production possibly because of local policies and agricultural practices. Examining relationships at the local scale will help establish effective local management of pollination services and crop production.

In urban and suburban ecosystems, biodiversity can depend on various non-native plant species, including crop plants, garden plants and weeds. Non-native plants may help to maintain biodiversity by providing a source of forage for pollinators in these ecosystems. However, the contribution of plants in urban and agricultural areas to ecosystem services has often been underestimated in biodiversity assessments. In this study, we investigated the pollen sources of native honeybees (Apis cerana) in an arboretum containing native trees and urban and agricultural plants in a suburban landscape. We surveyed the flowering tree species planted inside the arboretum, which were potential pollen sources. The number of potential pollen-source species of native trees peaked in June and July and decreased after August. We collected A. cerana pollen balls every month and identified plant species of pollen in the collected pollen balls using DNA barcoding. In total, we identified 29 plant species from A. cerana pollen balls. The probability of A. cerana using pollen from urban and agricultural plants was higher in July and August than in June. A. cerana collected pollen forages from native tree species (53%), but also gathered pollen from crop plants (13%), garden trees (19%) and native and non-native weeds (14%); the predominant pollen sources in September and October were the garden tree Ulmus parvifolia and the non-native weed Solidago altissima. We found that native honeybees used plants from a variety of habitats including non-native plants to compensate for apparent seasonal shortages of native tree sources in suburban ecosystems. Our results highlight the importance of assessments of both positive and negative roles of non-native plants in urbanized ecosystems to improve biodiversity conservation.

Although the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services has revealed that the development of scenarios is crucial for helping decision makers identify the potential impact of different policy options, there is a lack of reported scenario approach studies in Asia. A new 5-year research project (PANCES) has been developed for predicting and assessing the natural capital and ecosystem services in Japan using an integrated social–ecological system approach via the participation of 15 research institutions and more than 100 researchers. PANCES conducts the development of national-scale future scenarios for exploring potential changes in natural capital and ecosystem services, as well as human well-being, up to 2050 using key direct and indirect drivers including climate change, depopulation, and super-aging, as well as globalization and technological innovation. The Delphi method is employed to generate key drivers that determine different future pathways. Based on the two drivers for scenario axes identified by the Delphi survey and extensive discussion with project members and policy makers, four future scenarios are created, “Natural capital-based compact society”, “Natural capital-based dispersed society”, “Produced capital-based compact society”, and “Produced capital-based dispersed society”, respectively, in addition to the business-as-usual scenario. This study describes a novel approach for collectively designing national-scale future scenarios with qualitative storylines and a visual illustration of the developed scenarios in Japan.

Animal pollination is a vital ecosystem service, and wild bees are essential providers of this service for both crops and wild flowering plants. The early successional stage of a plantation, which can be dominated by grasses and herbaceous plant species, can provide a habitat for various species of wild bees. We sampled bees from 13 early successional plantation patches of different sizes, ranging from 1.3 to 10 ha. We then applied a hierarchical community model to infer species richness/abundance–area relationships. The results showed that estimates of population densities of individual species were unchanged with respect to area, suggesting that smaller patches can have the same value per area as larger patches. Estimated species richness increased rapidly for the small range of patch sizes examined. Total abundance was found to linearly increase with area. The inclusion of random site effects into the model resulted in significant density variations among patches; therefore, patch area was not the only determining factor of species abundance. These outcomes in relation to management operations for forests and plantations suggest that small patches of early successional forest contribute to conserve and restore wild bee diversity.

Future predictions are imperative for environmental planning decisions as ecosystem changes take time to have an effect. In this paper, on the basis of a scenario approach to expose common frameworks and legitimacy, we quantitatively and qualitatively reviewed scientific papers to assess the future condition of ecosystem services. Of the 464 recent papers on biodiversity and ecosystem service changes, we extracted 106 papers by excluding papers that only examined climate change and/or carbon dioxide. Of the 106 papers, most used three scenarios to assess changes in from two to four ecosystem services over the next 20 to 30 years. Overall, not all of the scenarios were used in a predictive capacity, and of the ecosystem services examined, regulating and provisioning services were analyzed more frequently than cultural services. In practice, when using the outcomes of this scenario approach, either an administrative unit or a basin approach is an advisable scale for decision making. As a basin includes various micro ecosystems and various stakeholders, a participatory approach is the most favored.

1. Habitat loss and fragmentation potentially affect the performance of bees that forage nectar and pollen of plants in their habitats. In forest landscapes, silvicultural conifer plantations often have reduced and fragmented natural broadleaf forests, which seem to provide more floral resources for bees than do the plantations. 2. This study evaluated the effects of forest characteristics (i.e. elevation, area, edge length, and tree size of natural forests) on pollen diets (plant taxa assemblages of pollen grains in provisions) and total provision mass in oviposited chambers in nests made by a standardised number of Osmia cornifrons bees at 14 sites in a forestry area in central Japan. 3. From April to May, the numbers of nests and chambers per nest increased, and the provision mass per chamber decreased. Main pollen sources were Prunus at higher elevations in April and Wisteria at lower elevations in May, foraging on which increased the numbers of nests and chambers per nest. The provision mass per chamber was smaller at higher elevations in more fragmented natural forests. Decreases in the area of natural forests within the foraging range (400‐m radii) of O. cornifrons increased the utilisation of Rubus pollen and decreased the total provision mass. 4. These findings suggest that the loss and fragmentation of natural broadleaf forests change pollen diets and reduce the provision mass of mason bees, which may reduce the number and size of their offspring.

Although forestry plantations dominate landscapes in many parts of the world, effects of plantation forestry on various ecosystem services (ESs) remain unknown. Here, we modeled 10 forest ESs as functions of forest type (natural forest vs. plantation), stand age, and environmental covariates to systematically evaluate ESs of plantation landscapes in central Japan. Our models showed that although three ESs including biodiversity conservation and amenity service are greatly reduced by replacing natural forests with plantations, other ESs show small changes or even increase when stand age is accounted for. Five ESs increase and four decrease with stand age in both forest types. Model application to the study area in the past 60 years suggested that many ESs were greatly reduced when or immediately after vast plantations were established. Two ESs (biodiversity conservation and amenity service) have not sufficiently recovered despite forests’ reaching maturity. ESs dependent on early-successional stage showed precipitous recent declines. Scenario analysis suggests that increasing timber production while avoiding harvesting steep slopes would not increase landslide susceptibility. Furthermore, restoration of natural forests in flat areas near roads would greatly improve biodiversity conservation and amenity services. Landscape management will determine whether plantations deliver net benefits to current and future generations.

This article investigates the shadow value of resilience in complex natural lands acting as wild pollinator habitats. We capture the linkage between pollination services in crop production and habitat conditions in the surrounding natural land with a bioeconomic model. Our case study is buckwheat, which is produced in the hilly and mountainous region of central Japan and is greatly dependent on diverse fauna for pollination services. We model the mechanism of regime shifts in ecosystems consisting of buckwheat fields and the surrounding natural land with a threshold estimation model. We then find that the forest around the crop fields, which serves as a habitat for wild pollinators, is a determinant of an ecological threshold that causes regime shifts. We calculate the shadow value of resilience provided by forest habitat around a unit of buckwheat field to be $9,796, implying that the total value of resilience in complex natural land amounts to half of the stock price of buckwheat land. This overlooked value gives us useful insights on the sustainable use of ecosystems, including both pollinator‐mediated crop fields and habitats for pollinators.

Replacement of natural forests with plantations is causing forest loss and fragmentation worldwide. There is a great need for conservation and restoration of fauna in these fragmented forests, particularly those with special ecological functions, such as fruit-eating birds. In this 3-year study, we explored the relative importance of landscape-level and local factors for the richness and abundance of fruit-eating birds in broad-leaved forest patches scattered within a coniferous plantation in Japan. As local factors of remnant forests we included fleshy fruit availability and stand structural attributes, and then analyzed how the relative importance of these factor varies between the breeding (May–August) and non-breeding (September–December) seasons and among three bird size classes. Our results provide new insights into seasonal variations in the factors associated with bird richness and abundance and demonstrate the importance of fruit availability in the remnant forest patches. The main factors showing positive associations with bird richness/abundance were stand structural attributes (e.g., tree basal area) and landscape variables (e.g., proportion of broad-leaved forest) during the breeding season, whereas it was fruit availability during the non-breeding season, when migrating birds are dominant. We detected only minor variations in the associated factors among the three size classes. Thus, preserving continuous mature forests is of great importance for conserving breeding communities of fruit-eating birds, and maintaining fruit availability is an effective approach for supporting migrating birds during the non-breeding season. These findings are applicable to forest management aimed toward biodiversity conservation in regions being replaced or to be replaced by plantations, such as in many areas of temperate East Asia.

To conserve local biodiversity and ensure the provision of pollination services, it is essential to understand the impact of pesticides on wild honey bees. Most studies that have investigated the effects of pesticides on honey bees have focused on the European honey bee (Apis mellifera (Hymenoptera: Apidae)), which is commonly domesticated worldwide. However, the Asian honey bee (Apis cerana) is widely distributed throughout Asia, and toxicity data are lacking for this species. This study aimed to fill this important knowledge gap. In this study, we determined the acute contact toxicity in A. cerana to various pesticides, including neonicotinoids, fipronil, organophosphorus, synthetic pyrethroids, carbamate, and anthranilic diamide. Based on the test duration of 48 h of contact LD50 tests, A. cerana was most sensitive to dinotefuran (0.0014 μg/bee), followed by thiamethoxam (0.0024 μg/bee) and fipronil (0.0025 μg/bee). Dinotefuran is used extensively in Asia, thereby potentially creating a substantial hazard. More generally, A. cerana was approximately one order of magnitude more sensitive than was A. mellifera to most of the pesticides evaluated. The results of our study suggest that neonicotinoid pesticides should not be considered as a single group that acts uniformly on all honey bees, and that more careful management strategies are required to conserve A. cerana populations than A. mellifera.

Models and data used to describe species–area relationships confound sampling with ecological process as they fail to acknowledge that estimates of species richness arise due to sampling. This compromises our ability to make ecological inferences from and about species–area relationships. We develop and illustrate hierarchical community models of abundance and frequency to estimate species richness. The models we propose separate sampling from ecological processes by explicitly accounting for the fact that sampled patches are seldom completely covered by sampling plots and that individuals present in the sampling plots are imperfectly detected. We propose a multispecies abundance model in which community assembly is treated as the summation of an ensemble of species‐level Poisson processes and estimate patch‐level species richness as a derived parameter. We use sampling process models appropriate for specific survey methods. We propose a multispecies frequency model that treats the number of plots in which a species occurs as a binomial process. We illustrate these models using data collected in surveys of early‐successional bird species and plants in young forest plantation patches. Results indicate that only mature forest plant species deviated from the constant density hypothesis, but the null model suggested that the deviations were too small to alter the form of species–area relationships. Nevertheless, results from simulations clearly show that the aggregate pattern of individual species density–area relationships and occurrence probability–area relationships can alter the form of species–area relationships. The plant community model estimated that only half of the species present in the regional species pool were encountered during the survey. The modeling framework we propose explicitly accounts for sampling processes so that ecological processes can be examined free of sampling artefacts. Our modeling approach is extensible and could be applied to a variety of study designs and allows the inclusion of additional environmental covariates.

The eastern hive bee Apis cerana is a major honeybee species in Asia providing numerous ecosystem services. Understanding how much the honeybees depend on natural and human-influenced plants and landscapes in different climates is important could contribute to evaluate how wild honeybees use food resources and to measure the ecosystem services. We investigated the effects of land use and climate changes on stable nitrogen and carbon isotope ratios in wild populations of A. cerana. In populations from 139 individual sites throughout Japan, we measured nitrogen (δ15N) and carbon (δ13C) stable isotope ratios and analyzed the effects of land use and climate. Our results showed that forested areas and annual precipitation had significant effects on δ15N, and that paddy fields and urban areas had significant effects on δ13C. These results suggest that A. cerana sensibly uses available food resources in the various environments and that stable nitrogen and carbon isotope ratios clearly reflect the effects of land use and climate changes on the populations of A. cerana. Thus, stable nitrogen and carbon isotope ratios in A. cerana, which widely distributes in Asia, can be used as indicators of the environments, such as land use and climate, of an area within its foraging range.

The idea that noncrop habitat enhances pest control and represents a win–win opportunity to conserve biodiversity and bolster yields has emerged as an agroecological paradigm. However, while noncrop habitat in landscapes surrounding farms sometimes benefits pest predators, natural enemy responses remain heterogeneous across studies and effects on pests are inconclusive. The observed heterogeneity in species responses to noncrop habitat may be biological in origin or could result from variation in how habitat and biocontrol are measured. Here, we use a pest-control database encompassing 132 studies and 6,759 sites worldwide to model natural enemy and pest abundances, predation rates, and crop damage as a function of landscape composition. Our results showed that although landscape composition explained significant variation within studies, pest and enemy abundances, predation rates, crop damage, and yields each exhibited different responses across studies, sometimes increasing and sometimes decreasing in landscapes with more noncrop habitat but overall showing no consistent trend. Thus, models that used landscape-composition variables to predict pest-control dynamics demonstrated little potential to explain variation across studies, though prediction did improve when comparing studies with similar crop and landscape features. Overall, our work shows that surrounding noncrop habitat does not consistently improve pest management, meaning habitat conservation may bolster production in some systems and depress yields in others. Future efforts to develop tools that inform farmers when habitat conservation truly represents a win–win would benefit from increased understanding of how landscape effects are modulated by local farm management and the biology of pests and their enemies., This work was supported through the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC) National Science Foundation Award DBI-1052875 for the project “Evidence and Decision-Support Tools for Controlling Agricultural Pests with Conservation Interventions” organized by D.S.K. and R.C.-K

International audience; Forests are critical habitats for biodiversity and they are also essential for the provision of a wide range of ecosystem services that are important to human well-being. There is increasing evidence that biodiversity contributes to forest ecosystem functioning and the provision of ecosystem services. Here we provide a review of forest ecosystem services including biomass production, habitat provisioning services, pollination, seed dispersal, resistance to wind storms, fire regulation and mitigation, pest regulation of native and invading insects, carbon sequestration, and cultural ecosystem services, in relation to forest type, structure and diversity. We also consider relationships between forest biodiversity and multifunctionality, and trade-offs among ecosystem services. We compare the concepts of ecosystem processes, functions and services to clarify their definitions. Our review of published studies indicates a lack of empirical studies that establish quantitative and causal relationships between forest biodiversity and many important ecosystem services. The literature is highly skewed; studies on provisioning of nutrition and energy, and on cultural services, delivered by mixed-species forests are under-represented. Planted forests offer ample opportunity for optimising their composition and diversity because replanting after harvesting is a recurring process. Planting mixed-species forests should be given more consideration as they are likely to provide a wider range of ecosystem services within the forest and for adjacent land uses. This review also serves as the introduction to this special issue of Biodiversity and Conservation on various aspects of forest biodiversity and ecosystem services.

Land use changes have generally been considered a local matter, but they are becoming an issue of much wider concern as changes in the use of non-agricultural lands occasionally generate nationwide agricultural pest problems. Plautia stali Scott is a serious pest in orchards, and the widespread distribution of this pest is likely associated with the expansion of planted coniferous forests in Japan. An experiment was conducted on 29 study sites in diverse areas of planted coniferous forest in central Japan, and the abundance of P. stali was monitored over four seasons for 3 years. Results revealed that the optimum radius required to cause an effect on the area surrounding the conifer planted forest was up to 4 km—specifically, 2,000, 400, 1,500, and 200 m in April, June, August, and October, respectively. Positive correlations were observed between conifer planted forests and the collected numbers of P. stali in April, June, and August. These temporal scales provide a direct evaluation of the landscape effects of a conifer planted forest on population dynamics, and this information will contribute to the development and improvement of area-wide P. stali management.

The biological control of pest insects in farmlands is an important ecosystem service provided by natural enemies, a tenet that is frequently supported by natural ecosystems; however, natural ecosystems can sometimes serve as a source of pests and can maintain them as an ecosystem disservice. We examined the effects of the surrounding seminatural and natural matrix on aphid presence and aphid predator abundance in buckwheat fields. We specifically aimed to detect whether the seminatural and natural matrix causes a trade-off between pest and natural enemy abundances. We established buckwheat study fields in a region of central Japan, the landscape of which is quite complex. Our results showed that aphid presence was not affected by either the abundance of ladybirds and lacewings or the area of the surrounding seminatural and natural matrix. We also found that the abundance of ladybirds, but not of lacewings, was significantly affected by the area of the seminatural and natural matrix. These findings suggest that in a complex landscape, as the area of seminatural and natural lands increases, some assemblages of natural enemies could also increase, but their biological control services would have little effect or would be compensated for by larger pest migration, leading to no net difference in pest damage.

The nematode family Aphelenchoididae is a highly divergent group that contains plant parasites, predators, fungal feeders, and insect parasites. It is taxonomically separated into 7 subfamilies. Although molecular phylogenetic relationships among 6 of the subfamilies have been clarified, the phylogenetic position of the subfamily Entaphelenchinae, which is composed of endoparasites of insects, remains unclear. Here, a new entaphelenchid species, Peraphelenchus orientalis n. sp., was isolated from the body cavities of burying beetles, Nicrophorus quadripunctatus, with a 14% prevalence (5 out of 36). The phylogenetic position of the subfamily within the family Aphelenchoididae was determined using morphological and molecular data for the new species. The rRNA sequences suggested that the new species belongs to Clade 3 of Aphelenchoididae, which mostly consists of predators and insect parasites. Although molecular sequences from other entaphelenchid species were not available, the subfamily appears to be monophyletic. The new species is characterized by the absence of a functional rectum and anus and by the presence of 3 pairs of male genital papillae, a loosely coiled male body, and a W-shaped male spicule. Compared with the original description of Peraphelenchus necrophori, P. orientalis n. sp. has significant typological differences, possibly because of misinterpretations during the original description of P. necrophori. Excluding these questionable characters, i.e., presence-absence of functional rectum and anus and number of male genital papillae, the new species is distinguished from P. necrophori by minor morphological characters and morphometric values.

Forest loss and degradation can impact on ecosystem functions. Decomposition of vertebrate carcasses is an important ecosystem function in forests, and burying beetles and scavenging vertebrates is known to contribute to the provision of this function in forests. However, the relative importance of burying beetles and scavenging vertebrates in the removal of vertebrate carcasses has rarely been explored in terms of the impact of forest loss and degradation. Here, we experimentally placed mouse carcasses on forest floors to investigate burial and removal rates by forest animals during a 7-day period at 31 sites (natural broad-leaved forests and conifer plantations in an urban/agricultural matrix) in central Japan. Ninety-six percent of dead mice disappeared with 7 days of being placed on the forest floor. Rates of carcass disappearance increased with forest area surrounding the study sites. Field observations and camera trapping showed that two species of Nicrophorus burying beetles and six species of scavenging vertebrates contributed to the carcass burial and removal. Burial rates by beetles increased with forest area, while removal rates by vertebrates decreased with forest area. Model comparisons showed that the area of both natural forests and plantations surrounding the study sites influenced burial and removal rates. Therefore, forest loss influenced the disappearance rates of vertebrate carcasses. Different responses to forest loss between burying beetles and scavenging vertebrates could maintain the carcass burying/removing function at a landscape level.

A Ruehmaphelenchus species was isolated from an ambrosia beetle, Euwallacea fornicates, during a biodiversity survey of entomophilic nematodes in Taichung, Taiwan. The new species is characterised by a unique tail morphology in both males and females, and a unique spicule morphology in males. The male spicule has clear dorsal and ventral limbs (connected by a blade-like cuticle), a triangular membrane-like structure on its sides, and short, conspicuous, laterally oriented, projections at the distal end. In a molecular phylogenetic tree, inferred from near-full-length small subunit (SSU: 18S) and D2/D3 expansion segments of the large subunit (LSU: 28S) of ribosomal RNA, the new species and other nominal and undescribed Ruehmaphelenchus species formed a well supported clade within Bursaphelenchus. Although this result supports a previous study that suggested that Ruehmaphelenchus is a junior synonym of Bursaphelenchus, the generic relationship between Ruehmaphelenchus and Bursaphelenchus remains somewhat uncertain. Therefore, R. formosanus n. sp. is described as a member of Ruehmaphelenchus, although this should be regarded as a tentative placement.

Ten pollinator policies1. Raise pesticide regulatory standards.2. Promote integrated pest management (IPM).3. Include indirect and sublethal ef ects inGM crop risk assessments.4. Regulate movement of managed pollinators.5. Develop incentives, such as insurance schemes,to help farmers benef t from ecosystemservices instead of agrochemicals.6. Recognize pollination as an agricultural inputin extension services.7. Support diversif ed farming systems.8. Conserve and restore ?green infrastructure?(a network of habitats that pollinators can movebetween) in agricultural and urban landscapes.9. Develop long-term monitoring of pollinatorsand pollination.10. Fund participatory research on improvingyields in organic, diversif ed, and ecologicallyintensif ed farming. Fil: Dicks, Lynn V.. University of East Anglia; Reino Unido Fil: Viana, Blandina. Universidade Federal da Bahia; Brasil Fil: Bommarco, Riccardo. Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences; Suecia Fil: Brosi, Berry. Emory University; Estados Unidos Fil: del Coro Arizmendi, María. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México; México Fil: Cunningham, Saul A.. The Australian National University; Australia Fil: Galetto, Leonardo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Vegetal. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas Físicas y Naturales. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Vegetal; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba; Argentina Fil: Hill, Rosemary. James Cook University. Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation Land and Water; Australia Fil: Lopez, Ariadna V.. Universidade Federal de Pernambuco; Brasil Fil: Pires, Carmen. Embrapa Recursos Genéticos e Biotecnologia; Brasil Fil: Taki, Hisatomo. Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute; Japón Fil: Potts, Simon G.. University of Reading; Reino Unido

The effects of lures containing aphid sex pheromone components (4aS,7S,7aR)-nepetalactone and (1R,4aS,7S,7aR)-nepetalactol on abundance of pea aphid, Acyrthosiphon pisum Harris, aphid parasitoids, predators and hyperparasitoids in alfalfa fields were investigated over three years. Although aphid abundance was variable among years, pheromone lure treatment significantly decreased aphid abundance. Among natural enemies of the aphids, only parasitism by the aphid parasitoids Aphidius ervi Haliday and Praon barbatum Mackauer was affected by pheromone lure treatment, with parasitism rates being significantly increased. In contrast, no pheromone lure effects on abundance were detected for predacious species and hyperparasitoids. These results indicate that slow-release formulations of synthetic aphid sex pheromone can attract primary aphid parasitoids and enhance their ability to suppress aphid abundance in the field, and that negative effects on biological control by hyperparasitoids and intraguild predation are not promoted by pheromone lure treatment.

Wild andmanaged bees arewell documented as effective pollinators of global crops of economic importance. However, the contributions by pollinators other than bees have been little explored despite their potential to contribute to crop production and stability in the face of environmental change. Non-bee pollinators include flies, beetles, moths, butterflies, wasps, ants, birds, and bats, among others. Here we focus on non-bee insects and synthesize 39 field studies from five continents that directly measured the crop pollination services provided by non-bees, honey bees, and other bees to compare the relative contributions of these taxa. Non-bees performed 25-50% of the total number of flower visits. Although non-bees were less effective pollinators than bees per flower visit, they made more visits; thus these two factors compensated for each other, resulting in pollination services rendered by non-bees that were similar to those provided by bees. In the subset of studies that measured fruit set, fruit set increased with non-bee insect visits independently of bee visitation rates, indicating that non-bee insects provide a unique benefit that is not provided by bees. We also show that non-bee insects are not as reliant as bees on the presence of remnant natural or seminatural habitat in the surrounding landscape. These results strongly suggest that non-bee insect pollinators play a significant role in global crop production and respond differently than bees to landscape structure, probably making their crop pollination services more robust to changes in land use. Non-bee insects provide a valuable service and provide potential insurance against bee population declines.

Although primary forests are important for biological conservation, the value of secondary forests for forest-dependent organisms needs to be evaluated when habitat restoration is required. We examined whether flower-visiting insects can use secondary forests as alternative habitats to primary forests. In particular, we compared assemblages of bees (Anthophila) and flower longhorn beetles (Lepturinae: Cerambycidae) in young secondary, mature secondary, and primary forests. Our results showed that more bee species were captured in primary and mature secondary forests than in young secondary forests, and flower longhorn beetle species were captured more frequently in primary forests than in mature and young secondary forests. Ordination showed that the communities in the three forest types were not statistically identical, which indicated that secondary forests cannot provide an absolute alternative habitat to primary forests for bees and flower longhorn beetles. However, the results also suggest that as secondary forests mature, more primary forest species would be able to use secondary forests as habitats. This implies that restoration from other land uses, such as monoculture plantations, to secondary forests could help to promote the faunal biodiversity of primary forests.

The intensity of interspecific interactions between hosts and symbionts varies among populations of each organism because of differences in the biotic and abiotic environment. We found geographic mosaics in associations between lucanid beetles (Dorcus rectus and Dorcus striatipennis) and symbiotic mites (Haitlingeria sp. and Sandrophela sp., respectively) that were caused by the collapse of host specificity in the northern part of Japan. Haitlingeria sp. was only collected from the surface of the exoskeleton of D. rectus in south and central Japan. Sandrophela sp. showed host specificity in southern to central Japan but was found on both beetle species in areas where Haitlingeria sp. was not found. Because Haitlingeria sp. was able to reproduce on D. rectus collected from Haitlingeria-free regions and no significant differences were observed in average temperature between the host-specific and nonspecific regions bordering on each other, we suggest that the expansion of Haitlingeria sp. in the north has been limited for unknown reasons. When both mites were placed together on D. rectus, only Haitlingeria sp. reproduced, probably because it killed Sandrophela sp., especially juveniles. Thus, we conclude that Sandrophela sp. has expanded its host use to include D. rectus in areas where Haitlingeria sp. is absent. We hypothesise that false host specificity in the canestriniids has been maintained by habitat isolation and/or aggressive behaviour toward competitors. We suggest that host-specific canestriniids provide benefits to hosts that do not develop countermeasures to exclude micro- or macroparasites from their surfaces.

In Japan, 42 % of forests are planted forests, and most of them were established after World War II (1950–1980) to meet increased wood demands. Although Japanese planted forests are now reaching their planned harvest age, they have not been managed, and their restoration is now being discussed. Japanese foresters have not cut their own forests, and the country’s high wood demands have been met by imports during recent decades. The decline of young forests due to the stagnation of forestry activity is suggested to be partly responsible for the nation-wide decline in early-successional species, which is referred to as the “second crisis of biodiversity.” As a timber-importing nation, it is suggested that Japan has underused the nation’s own forests and has overused forests elsewhere. A revival of Japanese plantation forestry may contribute to the restoration of early-successional species because young planted forests are likely to provide suitable habitats. Furthermore, only 30 % of the current planted forests in Japan will be needed to meet the expected future domestic demand for lumber and plywood without imports. The remaining 70 % of the current planted forests may be restored to natural forests with or without harvesting. The history of Japanese planted forests suggests that some natural trees/forests should be retained, even in the landscapes that specialize in wood production, because part of the planted forests may be economically marginalized in the future, and their restoration to natural forests would then be needed.

Since the 1960s, Japan has become highly dependent on foreign countries for natural resources, and the amount of managed lands (e.g. coppice, grassland, and agricultural field) has declined. Due to infrequent natural and human disturbance, early-successional species are now declining in Japan. Here we surveyed bees, birds, and plants in four human-disturbed open habitats (pasture, meadow, young planted forest, and abandoned clear-cut) and two forest habitats (mature planted forest and natural old-growth). We extended a recently developed multispecies abundance model to accommodate count data, and used the resulting models to estimate species-, functional group-, and community-level state variables (abundance and species richness) at each site, and compared them among the six habitats. Estimated individual-level detection probability was quite low for bee species (mean across species = 0.003; 0.16 for birds). Thirty-two (95% credible interval: 13–64) and one (0–4) bee and bird species, respectively, were suggested to be undetected by the field survey. Although habitats in which community-level abundance and species richness was highest differed among taxa, species richness and abundance of early-successional species were similar in the four disturbed open habitats across taxa except for plants in the pasture habitat which was a good habitat only for several exotic species. Our results suggest that human disturbance, especially the revival of plantation forestry, may contribute to the restoration of early-successional species in Japan.

Bursaphelenchus tadamiensis n. sp. is described. The new species was isolated during a field survey of nematodes associated with stag beetles. It was recovered from the dissected body of a Dorcus striatipennis, from Tadami, Fukushima, Japan. The new species is medium sized for the genus, with males 486-772 μm and females 643-997 μm in body length, and has four lateral lines, six male genital papillae (P1 ventral single papilla is missing or vestigial), mitten-shaped spicule with clear dorsal and ventral limbs, rather large squared bursal flap, vulva lacking flap, female tail long, tapering and ventrally curved. Based upon its diagnostic morphological characters, the new species belongs to the B. fungivorus group and is close to B. thailandae, B. willibaldi and B. braaschae. It is distinguished from these three species by morphology of the male bursal flap and several morphometric values, e.g., the V value of B. tadamiensis n. sp. is clearly larger than that of the above three species. The molecular phylogenetic analyses inferred from near full-length SSU and D2/D3 LSU supported the morphological observations, i.e., the new species is molecularly similar to B. thailandae, B. willibaldi, B. braaschae and B. kiyoharai. The stag beetle association of the new species may be an accidental phoresy, although the nematode could be undergoing carrier (vector) switching, because only two adult (no dauer juveniles) individuals were isolated from only one of 100 beetles examined. The insect organ with which the nematode was associated is unknown.

A survey of stag beetle (Lucanidae)-associated nematodes was conducted in Japan to construct a preliminary species inventory and to obtain their molecular profiles as a first step for elucidating their host fidelity and ecological roles. Eight species of stag beetles (94 individuals in total), Dorcus rubrofemoratus, D. montivagus, D. striatipennis, D. rectus, D. titanus, Prismognathus angularis, Prosopocoilus inclinatus, and Lucanus maculifemoratus were collected from 12 localities in Japan, dissected and examined for nematode associates. Isolated nematodes were used to attempt the establishment of voucher cultures. Successfully cultured nematodes were observed under a light microscope for morphological identification at genus or species level, and were sequenced for their near full length SSU and D2/D3 LSU. All investigated lucanid individuals harbored at least one species of nematode, and eight species (Bursaphelenchus sp., Koerneria luziae, K. lucani, Pristionchus cf. pacificus, Pristionchus s...

As planted forests expand in area, they are beginning to dominate landscapes as a matrix and cause the fragmentation of remaining natural forests. To understand and predict the responses of biological assemblages to maturing planted landscapes, examining the effects of forest type (natural vs planted) and forest age on such assemblages is particularly important. Therefore, to document the effects of forest type and age on longhorned beetle assemblages, in 2008 we collected beetles in broad-leaved natural and cedar planted forests where beetles had also been collected in 1989. Beetle species composition differed greatly between the two forest types in 1989, whereas this difference was less pronounced in 2008. Species richness and total abundance were higher in natural forests than in planted forests in 1989. In 2008, species richness had decreased in both forest types, but the difference between the two forest types had been maintained. Total abundance was also markedly lower in 2008, and the difference between forest types was much smaller. Although larval host plants were not associated with the responses of species to year (forest age or maturation), beetle species whose larvae fed on either broad-leaved or coniferous trees (or both) exhibited slight preferences for natural forests. These results suggest that longhorned beetle assemblages become impoverished in planted landscapes as the planted matrix matures. Changes in species composition with forest maturation may be difficult to predict based on larval host plants. However, consideration of larval host plants may enable the prediction of changes in species composition caused by the replacement of natural forests by planted forests.

Crop pollination is an essential ecosystem service, which, when provided by wild pollinator species, can be negatively affected by human activities at a landscape scale. Various pollinator species can be affected by landscape factors and/or act at different spatial scales. We investigated whether different landscape factors at different spatial scales are correlated with pollinator abundances and pollination success. We examined common buckwheat, which is a self-incompatible crop species, pollinated by managed honeybees, native honeybees, and wild non-honeybee insects. To determine the effects of landscape factors at different spatial scales, we sampled flower-visiting insects and recorded seed sets. Results from the sampled flower visitors indicated that the abundances of managed honeybees, native honeybees, and wild non-honeybee insects were significantly related to the distance of managed hives, the area of forest cover within a 3-km radius, and the area of forest and grassland cover within a 100-m radius, respectively. Additionally, the latter two influential factors of the landscape, but not the distance of managed hives, showed significant positive correlations with the seed set. These results suggest that considering landscape factors at different spatial scales associated with the characteristics of managed and wild pollinators would help to ensure crop yields.

Many indicators/indices provide information on whether the 2010 biodiversity target of reducing declines in biodiversity have been achieved. The strengths and limitations of the various measures used to assess the success of such measures are now being discussed. Biodiversity dynamics are often evaluated by a single biological population metric, such as the abundance of each species. Here we examined tree population dynamics of 52 families (192 species) at 11 research sites (three vegetation zones) of Japanese old-growth forests using two population metrics: number of stems and basal area. We calculated indices that track the rate of change in all species of tree by taking the geometric mean of changes in population metrics between the 1990s and the 2000s at the national level and at the levels of the vegetation zone and family. We specifically focused on whether indices based on these two metrics behaved similarly. The indices showed that (1) the number of stems declined, whereas basal area did not change at the national level and (2) the degree of change in the indices varied by vegetation zone and family. These results suggest that Japanese old-growth forests have not degraded and may even be developing in some vegetation zones, and indicate that the use of a single population metric (or indicator/index) may be insufficient to precisely understand the state of biodiversity. It is therefore important to incorporate more metrics into monitoring schemes to overcome the risk of misunderstanding or misrepresenting biodiversity dynamics.

1. Tree harvesting, an anthropogenic disturbance, and natural disturbances, such as avalanches, windstorms, fires, and floods, drive forest reestablishment. Chrono-sequential changes in plant communities as well as reforestation caused by harvesting and natural disturbances can affect forest faunal assemblages. 2. The effects of reforestation age, from recently harvested to old growth between 1 and 178 years old, on moth assemblages were examined for two types of reforestation: plantations and natural regeneration. 3. In total, 7848 individuals representing 579 species of moths were collected using black lights and then identified. In plantation forests, species richness and abundance responded unimodally to succession age, whereas in naturally regenerated forests, species richness and abundance did not significantly respond to succession age. In addition, the community structure of moth assemblages varied greatly in relation to succession age in both reforestation types. 4. These findings suggest that if the diversity of moth assemblages changes within and among forest stands of different successional stages, forest stands can provide habitat for unique moth assemblages. Thus, intentional forest management may enable the maintenance of greater moth diversity within a heterogeneous landscape or region. Various land-use practices, such as old growth forest conservation and short-length harvests, associated with forest types at the level of the forest stand could result in forest mosaics at the landscape or regional scale.