Corinna Wallinger

Austrian Academy of Sciences (OeAW) | ÖAW · Institute of Interdisciplinary Mountain Research

Understanding trophic interactions in agroecosystems is crucial for harnessing ecosystem services such as pest control, thus enabling a reduction in pesticide use. Carabid beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae) have the potential to regulate not only insect pests but also weed seeds and slugs. The aim of this study was to investigate the food choice of di...

Many omnivorous arthropods act as important pest control agents in agroecosystems. Assessing their prey choices helps to better understand their biocontrol potential in different environmental settings. To this end, multi‐target approaches of molecular gut content analysis allow studying their prey choices. Yet, DNA‐based analysis of trophic intera...

Facultative scavenging by predatory carnivores is a prevalent but frequently underestimated feeding strategy. DNA‐based methods for diet analysis, however, do not allow to distinguish between scavenging and predation, thus, the significance of scavenging on population dynamics and resource partitioning is widely unknown. Here, we present a methodol...

High-throughput sequencing platforms are increasingly being used for targeted amplicon sequencing because they enable cost-effective sequencing of large sample sets. For meaningful interpretation of targeted amplicon sequencing data and comparison between studies, it is critical that bioinformatic analyses do not introduce artefacts and rely on det...

DNA-based diet analysis of natural enemies is a valuable tool for unravelling the food choice of predators in agroecosystems. It enables the rapid identification of potential biocontrol agents of invertebrate pests. Here, we present a new multiplex PCR system for the identification of pest slug species in the diet of their natural enemies such as c...

eDNA analysis is ideally suited to monitor the occurrence of endangered or invasive species because of its non-invasive nature and high sensitivity. European freshwater crayfish are threatened across the whole continent. Classical crayfish monitoring is challenging and time consuming due to their nocturnal activity and hidden lifestyle. Therefore,...

Carabids are generalist predators that contribute to the agricultural ecosystem service of seedbank regulation via weed seed predation. To facilitate adoption of this ecosystem services by farmers, knowledge of weed seed predation and the resilience of seedbank regulation with co-varying availability of alternative prey is crucial. Using assessment...

Trophic interactions are monitored by molecular methods based on the identification of prey DNA in feces, regurgitates, or the gut content of consumers. In providing highly resolved taxonomic information on dietary choice, DNA‐based analysis has become a key approach to unraveling the structure and dynamics of food webs. It is crucial, however, to...

Fish are both consumers and prey and as such part of a dynamic trophic network. Measuring how they are trophically linked, both directly and indirectly, to other species is vital to comprehend the mechanisms driving alterations in fish communities in space and time. Moreover, this knowledge also helps to understand how fish communities respond to e...

Carabid beetles are abundant in temperate agroecosystems and can play a pivotal role as biocontrol agents. While there is good knowledge regarding their effects on invertebrate pests in some systems, comparably little is known on the rate of seed feeding under field conditions. Molecular approaches are ideally suited for investigating carabid feedi...

Carabids are abundant in temperate agroecosystems and play a pivotal role as biocontrol agents for weed seed and pest regulation. While there is good knowledge regarding their effects on invertebrate pests, direct evidence for seed predation in the field is missing. Molecular approaches are ideally suited to investigate these feeding interactions;...

Molecular techniques have become an important tool to empirically assess feeding interactions. The increased usage of next-generation sequencing approaches has stressed the need of fast DNA extraction that does not compromise DNA quality. Dietary samples here pose a particular challenge, as these demand high-quality DNA extraction procedures for ob...

Molecular approaches are increasingly being used to analyse host-parasitoid food webs as they overcome several hurdles inherent to conventional approaches. However, such studies have focused primarily on the detection and identification of aphids and their aphidiid primary parasitoids, largely ignoring primary parasitoid-hyperparasitoid interaction...

Molecular methods are facing increasing application on a broad remit in ecological studies, including work on parasites, parasitoids and pathogens. These studies can entail the screening of large sample numbers to monitor the establishment of parasitoid and pathogen infection rates over extended periods of time. However, when infection or parasitis...

Granivory can play a pivotal role in influencing regeneration, colonization as well as abundance and distribution of plants. Due to their high abundance, nutrient content and longevity, seeds are an important food source for many animals. Among insects, carabid beetles consume substantial numbers of seeds and are thought to be responsible for a sig...

During a field trip on the Ionian island of Kálamos in 1997, a total of 505 taxa of vascular plants were recorded, of which 346 are additional to those recorded by Baliousis & Yannitsaros 2010, resulting in 568 species now known from that island. They are documented in a catalogue with reference to localities. The first indication for the Ionian Is...

Biplot of a canonical correspondence analysis of the plots of the full-field dataset according to their vegetational composition.

Belowground herbivores impact plant performance, thereby inducing changes in plant community composition, which potentially leads to cascading effects onto higher trophic levels and ecosystem processes and productivity. Amongst soil-living insects, external root-chewing generalist herbivores have the strongest impact on plants. However, the lack of...

Soil-dwelling pests inflict considerable economic damage in agriculture but are hard to control. A promising strategy to reduce pest pressure on crops is to increase the plant diversity in agroecosystems. This approach, however, demands a sound understanding of species' interactions, which is widely lacking for subterranean herbivore-plant systems....

Agriotes wireworms (Coleoptera: Elateridae) are abundant soil-dwelling herbivores which can inflict considerable damage to field crops. In Europe up to 40 species occur, differing in their ecology and pest status. Their distribution in the larval stage, however, has rarely been assessed because of the considerable effort in collecting wireworms and...

Plant identity and diversity influence herbivore communities in many different ways. While it is well known how they affect the feeding preferences of aboveground herbivores, this information is lacking for soil ecosystems, where examining plant-herbivore trophic interactions is difficult. We performed a mesocosm experiment assessing how plant iden...

Plant roots represent an important food source for soil-dwelling animals, but tracking herbivore food choices below-ground is difficult. Here, we present an optimized PCR assay for the detection of plant DNA in the guts of invertebrates, using general plant primers targeting the trnT-F chloroplast DNA region. Based on this assay, we assessed the in...

Plant identification is challenging when no morphologically assignable parts are available. There is a lack of broadly applicable methods for identifying plants in this situation, for example when roots grow in mixture and for decayed or semi-digested plant material. These difficulties have also impeded the progress made in ecological disciplines s...

PCR conditions for template generation. (DOC)

PCR conditions to generate templates for sequencing. (DOC)

PCR conditions for initial primer testing. (DOC)

Tracking the movement of soil-living herbivores is difficult, albeit important for understanding their spatial ecology as well as for pest management. In this study the movement of Agriotes obscurus larvae between plots harbouring isotopically different plants was examined. Neither between maize and wheat nor between maize and grassland movement co...

Although a significant proportion of plant tissue is located in roots and other below-ground parts of plants, little is known on the dietary choices of root-feeding insects. This is caused by a lack of adequate methodology which would allow tracking below-ground trophic interactions between insects and plants. Here, we present a DNA-based approach...

Click beetle larvae within the genus Agriotes (Coleoptera: Elateridae), commonly known as wireworms, are abundant ground-dwelling herbivores which can inflict considerable damage to field crops. In Central Europe up to 20 species, which are likely to differ in their distribution, ecology and pest status, occur in arable land. However, the identific...

Click beetle larvae within the genus Agriotes feed on roots and tubers of plants and are serious pests worldwide. Albeit highly relevant for the control of these insects, the dispersal abilities under natural conditions of both larvae and adults are poorly known. Here we used a stable isotope approach to assess the dispersal abilities of agrioted b...

Although a significant proportion of plant tissue is located in roots and other below-ground parts of plants, little is known on the dietary choices of root-feeding insects. Assessing trophic interactions under natural conditions, however, is not a simple task. This is especially true for soil food webs where the opaque habitat hampers the direct i...

1 The dispersal abilities of agrioted beetles, serious pests on a variety of crops, are poorly known under natural conditions. This hampers their control. We used, for the first time, a stable isotope approach to assess dispersal of adult Agriotes obscurus in arable land. 2 After a diet switch from a C3- to a C4-plant, carbon isotope ratios of A. o...

How does genetic diversity within populations of plants develop during primary succession on alpine glacier forelands? Theory predicts that pioneer populations are characterized by low genetic diversity due to founder effects and that genetic diversity increases within populations as they mature and recurrent gene flow occurs. However, few genetic...

A large variety of reproductive patterns is present among alpine plants to ensure the persistence of populations in such harsh environments. In the present study, the role of spontaneous selfing and its contribution to the actual reproductive success of an alpine pioneer plant was investigated. The results showed that Saxifraga aizoides is clearly...

The primary succession on glacier forelands is characterized by a sequence of early and late successional species, but whether there is also a chronosequence at the intraspecific, genetic level is a matter of debate. Two opposing hypotheses differ in their prediction of genetic diversity in colonizing populations due to founder effects and postcolo...

The aim of this study was to assess the influence of comparable unequal environmental conditions on primary vegetation succession in an alpine glacier valley by the means of transects. Two longitudinal transects were established along the glacier foreland of the Rotmoosferner, Tyrol, Austria, and two transverse transects were established across the...

Numerous ecological studies have concentrated on primary plant succession within glacier forelands. However, hardly any investigations addressed the vegetation of the immediate surrounding and its possible influence on the primary colonization processes of the glacier forelands. This study had three principal aims: (i) to identify and describe the...

The Vegetation as an Indicator of Soil Development on the Glacier Foreland of the Rotmoosferner (Obergurgl, Ötztal, Northern Tyrol) Synopsis: Vegetation and soil development have been investigated on the glacier foreland of the Rotmousferner (Obergurgl, Otzial. Northern Tyrol). The soil texture (sand. silt. clay). pH and organic content were determ...