Franz Löffler

Universität Osnabrück | UOS · Biodiversity and Landscape Ecology

Studies from all over the world have recently reported severe declines in insect diversity and abundance. Due to their high sensitivity to environmental changes, butterflies are well-suited indicators for assessing the overall state of the terrestrial insect fauna. Though they rank among the best-studied insect groups, Europe's butterfly population...

Over the last decades, European farmland birds have strongly declined, mainly driven by agricultural intensification. The Ortolan Bunting Emberiza hortulana has suffered one of the most severe declines among farmland specialists. In order to maintain viable populations of the species in the long run, there is a vital need for evidence-based conserv...

Recent climate and land-use changes are having substantial impacts on biodiversity, including population declines, range shifts, and changes in community composition. However, few studies have compared these impacts among multiple taxa, particularly because of a lack of standardized time series data over long periods. Existing data sets are typical...

Semi-natural grasslands are among the most species-rich ecosystems worldwide. However, the maintenance of grassland biodiversity is seriously threatened by land-use change. Additionally, climate change is increasingly affecting biotic communities in grasslands. In this study, we examine Orthoptera community shifts in response to land-use and climat...

Aim: Stopping the decline of biodiversity is one of today’s greatest challenges. To help address this, we require studies that disentangle the effects of the most important drivers behind species range losses and shifts. In this large-scale study, we aim to evaluate the relative impacts of changes in land use and climate on distributional changes i...

Relative to their biomass or abundance, keystone species have a disproportionate effect on many other organisms. Common juniper (Juniperus communis) is an evergreen shrub that has significant impacts on microclimate, composition of plant assemblages and herbivorous insects. However, J. communis is currently not considered a keystone species. The pr...

Due to agricultural industrialisation, traditionally managed habitats have dramatically declined throughout Europe. As a result, farmland specialists across several taxa have become increasingly threatened. Concurrently, altered farming practices have also contributed to the emergence of novel agricultural habitats, such as Christmas‐tree plantatio...

Orthoptera (hereinafter termed ‘grasshoppers’) are of great functional significance since they are the main arthropod consumers in grasslands and an important food source for medium‐sized insectivorous vertebrates. However, research investigating the effects of extreme weather events on the abundance of grasshoppers has lacked thus far. Here, we st...

The intensification of agricultural land-use, abandonment and afforestation have caused severe loss and degradation of nutrient-poor, semi-natural grasslands across Europe. Calcareous grasslands have an outstanding value for nature conservation due to their highly diverse flora and fauna, including birds. However, knowledge of environmental factors...

Since the beginning of the industrial era, humankind has altered the environment at an unprecedented rate, causing a dramatic loss of biodiversity. Recent studies have revealed that extinction events often occur with a time delay. In ecology, this phenomenon is termed extinction debt. Here we give an overview of the concept of extinction debt and i...

• The decline of butterflies exceeds those of many other animal taxa due to their high sensitivity to habitat alterations driven by land‐use change. Moreover, cold‐adapted species frequently suffer severe range retractions due to rising temperatures at their trailing‐edge range margins. • In this study, we aim to identify drivers of occupancy of th...

Supplementary Material of the following paper: Poniatowski, D., Beckmann, C., Löffler, F., Münsch, T., Helbing, F., Samways, M.J. & T. Fartmann (2020): Relative impacts of land-use and climate change on grasshopper range shifts have changed over time. Global Ecology and Biogeography 29: 2190–2202. doi: 10.1111/geb.13188

The biodiversity in calcareous grasslands suffered from severe habitat loss due to land-use intensification and abandonment across Europe. Although these grasslands are now protected under the EU Habitats Directive, many species in the remaining habitat patches are still declining. Recent studies suggest that species across different taxa may becom...

Grasslands are among the most species-rich ecosystems in Europe. However, their biodiversity has become increasingly threatened by land-use and climate change. Here, we analyze Orthoptera assemblage shifts between 1996 and 2017 across three grassland types in the Black Forest (SW Germany) (N = 63): (i) formerly managed wet grasslands which have bee...

Owing to the drastic loss of natural freshwater habitats over recent decades, anthropogenic waterbodies are taking on an increased significance for the conservation of biodiversity. The value of traditionally managed carp-pond complexes for biodiversity is well known. Nevertheless, the periodic draining of ponds for harvesting and high fish-stockin...

Land-use change has caused degradation, loss and fragmentation of semi-natural habitats, especially in grassland ecosystems. Today, the remaining habitats are often situated in a matrix of intensively used agricultural land and are therefore more or less isolated from each other. Connectivity, area and quality of habitat patches have been identifie...

Novel ecosystems are characterised by recent establishment due to human activities and new species combinations. A characteristic example in farmlands are Christmas-tree plantations. The aim of this study is to evaluate the landscape-scale effects of the novel ecosystem Christmas-tree plantation on breeding bird assemblages in an important European...

Land-use intensification has caused a substantial decline of semi-natural habitats in Central Europe. Consequently, the biodiversity of those habitats has become increasingly threatened by habitat fragmentation and deterioration. Due to their complex and bipartite life cycle with aquatic and terrestrial stages, amphibians are particularly sensitive...

Während einer odonatologischen Untersuchung in der Oberlausitzer Heide- und Teichlandschaft wurde Orthetrum albistylum im Juni 2016 zum ersten Mal für Sachsen nachgewiesen. An einem Karpfenstreckteich im NSG „Niederspreer Teichgebiet und Kleine Heide Hähnichen“ (Landkreis Görlitz) konnten mehrere adulte Männchen und ein Weibchen beobachtet werden....

Grassland biodiversity is severely threatened by recent land-use change. Agricultural intensification on the one hand, and cessation of traditional land use on the other, have caused habitat loss, fragmentation and often a deterioration in habitat quality of the remaining habitat fragments. However, knowledge about the different environmental effec...

Natural floodplains belong to the most species-rich ecosystems worldwide. However, over the last decades there has been a strong decrease in the extent of natural floodplains. As a consequence, the biodiversity of these ecosystems has experienced a dramatic decline. In this study, we investigated the habitat and food preferences of the grasshopper...

Habitat specialists living in metapopulations are sensitive to habitat fragmentation. In most studies, the effects of fragmentation on such species are analyzed based on Euclidean inter-patch distances. This approach, however, ignores the role of the landscape matrix. Recently, therefore, functional distances that account for the composition of the...

The Green Leek Grasshopper (Mecostethus parapleurus) is a rare species in Germany and mainly occurs in the Upper Rhine Valley and the Lake Constance region. Here we describe the first observation of the species from the middle Bavarian Limestone Alps. The colonization of this locality and the range expansion in other parts of southern Germany are m...

During the past 150 years forest management has dramatically altered in Central European woodlands, with severe consequences for biodiversity. Light forests that fulfilled variable human demands were replaced by dark high forests that function solely as wood plantations. In the Alps, by contrast, open woodlands are still present because the traditi...

Many butterfly target species are associated with early successional stages of grasslands. The Blue-spot Hairstreak, Satyrium spini (Denis & Schiffermüller, 1775), is a target species of grasslands. However, it feeds on Common Buckthorn (Rhamnus cathartica), which is associated with late successional stages of grasslands. If S. spini would also be...