Novel energy crops: an opportunity to enhance the biodiversity of arthropod assemblages in biomass feedstock cultures?

Abstract

ABSTRACT Novel crops for energy production are perceived as a promising option for promoting biodiversity in agrarian landscapes. The biodiversity effects of three novel energy crops on the composition of the carabid beetle and arachnid assemblages at two sites in Northeast Germany were investigated and compared to maize. Species diversity was calculated using different diversity indices to illuminate three aspects of biodiversity: infrequency, heterogeneity, and the dominance structure of the species composition. We also calculated the diversity of habitat preferences of these two animal groups. The number of species and the biodiversity were highest in energy crops and lowest in maize. The vegetation structure explained >50% of the variance in species data. We concluded that the biodiversity effects of the novel energy plants can be attributed to the increased complexity of the vegetation structure. The investigations confirmed that the novel energy plants can contribute substantially to enhance the biodiversity of invertebrate assemblages in biomass feedstock cultures. EDITED BY Graciela Rusch