Michael Steinwandter

Eurac Research · Institute for Alpine Environment

More than half of all life on Earth lives belowground and regulates a wide range of ecosystem functions via their diverse trophic interactions. However, information on how trophic diversity of soil animals varies across functional groups and major environmental gradients is lacking. Here, we use stable isotope analysis (13C/12C and 15N/14N ratios)...

Mountain ecosystems play an important role globally as centers of biodiversity and in providing ecosystem services to lowland populations, but are influenced by multiple global change drivers such as climate change, nitrogen deposition, or altered disturbance regimes. As global change is accelerating and the consequences for humans and nature are i...

There are few studies of ground-dwelling invertebrates from alpine grasslands, often with only one or a few samplings per growing season. However, to get a comprehensive picture of the faunal community present, sampling over a full season is required. Here we present data on ground-dwelling macro-invertebrate communities from two differently manage...

Despite the importance of healthy soils for human livelihood, wellbeing, and safety, current gaps in our knowledge and understanding of biodiversity in soil are numerous, undermining conservation efforts. These gaps are particularly wide in mountain regions where healthy soils are especially important for human safety and yet evidence is accumulati...

In mountain regions, available agricultural land is often limited by the rugged topography and therefore an efficient and small-scale land use is needed to ensure food and fodder security. In the European Alps, mountain meadows at mid-elevations were created in medieval times by clearing and are therefore often still embedded in forest areas. The t...

Although the number of studies on soil and ground-dwelling fauna is constantly increasing, only few focus on high alpine areas. We conducted a comprehensive survey of ground-dwelling invertebrates in (high) alpine dry pastures along three elevational gradients (1500 to 3000 m a.s.l.) in the LT(S)ER area ‘Val Mazia/Matschertal’, South Tyrol, Italy....

The #AlpSoil_Lab investigates the communities of soil fauna in (high) alpine soil ecosystems. We assess not only their number and diversity, but also their functional and life-history characteristics. In this way, we contribute to closing crucial gaps in our knowledge.

On initiative of the government of the Autonomous Province of Bolzano-Südtirol (Province Bolzano-Südtirol, Region Trentino-Alto Adige, Italy) a biodiversity monitoring program was established, starting with sampling on terrestrial sites in 2019 and on running water sites in 2021. The Biodiversity Monitoring South Tyrol (BMS in short) is a long-term...

Here we report four spider findings that are new for the Province of South Tyrol (northern Italy), with two of them being new for Italy. All spider species were found on extensively grazed dry pastures located in the inner-alpine dry Vinschgau valley and in or close to the Italian LT(S)ER area „Val Mazia/Muntatschinig“ (LTER_EU_IT_097). The jumping...

There are few studies on ground-dwelling invertebrates from alpine ecosystems, often with only one or a few samplings per growing season. However, to get a most comprehensive picture of the faunal community present, samplings throughout an entire season are needed. Here we present data on ground-dwelling macro-invertebrate communities from four cha...

Land-use changes, especially agricultural intensification has increased in the last decades leading to a decrease in biodiversity. In Europe, grasslands have been influenced by humans for centuries and millennia and management intensity has increased since the 20th century. In this small-case study, we investigate how management intensity affects g...

Global change is affecting soil biodiversity and functioning across all terrestrial ecosystems. Still, much is unknown about how soil biodiversity and function will change in the future in response to simultaneous alterations in climate and land use, as well as other environmental drivers. It is crucial to understand the direct, indirect and intera...

Macro-invertebrates are important components of soil ecosystems as they provide a wide range of crucial functions and ecosystem services. Knowledge on their distribution in mountain soils is scarce despite the importance of such soils for people living in mountain regions as well as downstream. The present dataset contains records on soil macro-inv...

Research in global change ecology relies heavily on global climatic grids derived from estimates of air temperature in open areas at around 2 m above the ground. These climatic grids do not reflect conditions below vegetation canopies and near the ground surface, where critical ecosystem functions occur and most terrestrial species reside. Here, we...

The soil beneath our feet still requires more exploration, although we know that it is home to a vast number of organisms. It is basically a black box we cannot see into to observe its inhabitants and the processes they contribute to. In this article, we will tell you about soils that are even less explored. We are talking about mountain soils at h...

Insect communities (Insecta: Coleoptera, Heteroptera, Auchenorrhyncha) in windthrow areas at Mt. Latemar (Italy, South Tyrol). The storm "Vaia" caused large-scale windthrow in various parts of South Tyrol in Octo-ber 2018. One of the most heavily affected areas was a montane and sub-alpine spruce stand known as "Latemarwald" in the vicinity of Lake...

We studied abundance, diversity, and composition of soil invertebrates along snowmelt gradients to generally understand how soil animal communities are responding to life conditions across snowbeds along a west–east transect of the European Alps and to create a reference inventory for future investigations of climate change effects on snowbed habit...

Earthworms are an important soil taxon as ecosystem engineers, providing a variety of crucial ecosystem functions and services. Little is known about their diversity and distribution at large spatial scales, despite the availability of considerable amounts of local-scale data. Earthworm diversity data, obtained from the primary literature or provid...

Earthworms are an important soil taxon as ecosystem engineers, providing a variety of crucial ecosystem functions and services. Little is known about their diversity and distribution at large spatial scales, despite the availability of considerable amounts of local-scale data. Earthworm diversity data, obtained from the primary literature or provid...

For the northernmost province of Italy, South Tyrol, a permanent biodiversity monitoring system has been set up on the initiative of the South Tyrolean provincial government and under the direction of the Institute for Alpine Environment, Eurac Research. This monitoring not only serves as basic research but also intends to provide a scientific basi...

Intensification of agriculture has led to a decrease of biodiversity in grasslands, leading also to lower epigeic invertebrate numbers in those habitats. Because vegetation structure changes due to the increasing number of cuttings and the high input of fertilizers, ground-dwelling invertebrates decrease. Our study sites were located in Barbian/Bar...

Research in environmental science relies heavily on global climatic grids derived from estimates of air temperature at around 2 meter above ground1-3. These climatic grids however fail to reflect conditions near and below the soil surface, where critical ecosystem functions such as soil carbon storage are controlled and most biodiversity resides4-8...

Als Bodenzoologe/Bodenökologe schließe ich mich beim Tag der Artenvielfalt meistens anderen Expert*innen an und helfe ihnen Tiergruppen zu erfassen, an denen ich auch interessiert bin (Spinnentiere, Insekten, Wirbeltiere), da Bodentiere recht aufwändig mittels Bodenziegeln und Barberfallen erfasst werden. Diesmal wurden die Bodentiere aktiv in der...

Little is known about the complex processes within the soil ecosystem and especially about soil animals and their role in supporting and sustaining ecosystem functioning in alpine soils. Currently, environmental and socioeconomic changes, such as climate change and the cessation of traditional cultivation, are influencing mountain ecosystems. Epi-...

To understand how diversity is distributed in space is a fundamental aim for optimizing future species and community conservation. We examined in parallel species richness and beta diversity components of nine taxonomic groups along a finite space, represented by pastured grasslands along an elevational gradient. Beta diversity, which is assumed to...

Land-use changes and especially management intensification currently pose a major threat to biodiversity both on and beneath the soil surface. With a comparative approach, we investigated how management intensity in orchards and meadows influences soil macro-invertebrate communities in a North-Italian Alpine region. We compared soil fauna assemblie...

Alpine semi-natural grasslands were formed by hundreds of years of traditional and extensive land-use resulting in a distinct flora and fauna. Socio-economic changes in the last century led to the abandonment of a large number of alpine pasturelands. Even though litter composition and quality will permanently alter due to shifts in plant species co...

In the Central Alps the treeline is formed by the European larch (Larix decidua Mill.) and the Swiss pine (Pinus cembra L.), shaping the alpine plant community Larici-Cembretum. Currently, alpine pastures, which are increasingly abandoned in the European Alps, are colonised, after a phase of shrub encroachment, by the European larch, while a Swiss...

Citizen Science is increasingly used to collect biological data globally due to easy-to- use smartphone applications and internet platforms that allow to collect and identify species records directly in the field. Here, we summarize and compare the applicability and data quality of two common portals (namely Ornitho and iNaturalist), by means of nu...

The Dermestidae species Attagenus smirnovi Zhantiev, 1973 was discovered in two household in South Tyrol, making it the first official records for this species in Italy. The larvae feeds upon dried organic materials, making this species a common pest in museum collections and households in Central and Northern Europe. The spread of A. smirnovi in I...

Soil organisms, including earthworms, are a key component of terrestrial ecosystems. However, little is known about their diversity, their distribution, and the threats affecting them. We compiled a global dataset of sampled earthworm communities from 6928 sites in 57 countries as a basis for predicting patterns in earthworm diversity, abundance, a...

This PDF file includes: Materials and Methods Supplementary Text Figs. S1 to S6 Tables S1 to S4 References

In the original publication of the article, Figure 2 was published without the labels. The corrected figure and figure legend are provided in this Correction.

The genus Opetiopalpus from the family of checkered beetles (Coleoptera: Cleridae) is represented by 28 species worldwide, with 11 species found in the Palearctic and only four sparsely in Europe prior to 1998. One species, Opetiopalpus sabulosus Motschulsky, 1840, was recently found in Eastern Europe (i.e. Ukraine, Bulgaria, and Moldavia), with th...

Aims: Litter decomposition patterns, non-additive effects, and spectral data of abundant alpine leaf litters were assessed in litterbag experiments containing single species and mixtures. We tested if low-quality shrub litter decomposes faster in mixtures with high-quality litter and if predictions on decomposed litter using spectral data are feasi...

https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.900632

Alpine pastureland is increasingly abandoned, leading to shrub encroachment and to the accumulation of low-quality litter. Alpine key decomposers such as earthworms were found to feed on both low- and high-quality litter, but little is known how this might affect their life history traits. To fill this gap of knowledge, we conducted a laboratory ex...

Alpine grasslands were formed by centuries of extensive management, resulting in a distinct flora and fauna providing various ecosystem services. However, abandonment has been increasing for decades, leading to shrub encroachment which significantly affects the plant and soil macro-invertebrate community. Whether these changes are responsible for t...

The Matsch/Mazia Valley is a small tributary valley of the Vinschgau Valley (Val Venosta), the most extreme inner- Alpine dry valley of the Eastern Alps (Braun-Blanquet 1961). Due to large barriers in the South (Ortles/Ortler Group) and in the North (Ötztal Alps) there is little precipitation, mainly during the sommer months. Mals/Malles and Schlud...

From 2016 to 2018, four males of Saitis tauricus Kulczyński, 1905 were recorded in the northernmost province of Italy, Bozen – South Tyrol. These findings were made by chance in urban areas of the capital city of Bozen/Bolzano and the city of Meran/Merano, and represent the first findings of this species for South Tyrol and Italy. No females were r...

Traditionally managed mountain grasslands are declining as a result of abandonment or intensification of management. Based on a common chronosequence approach we investigated species compositions of 16 taxonomic groups on traditionally managed dry pastures, fertilized and irrigated hay meadows, and abandoned grasslands (larch forests). We included...

In the last decades, low permanent cover crops were established in vineyard alleyways to facilitate management. However, a consequence was the decline of flora and fauna diversity. Green manuring by seeding flowering plants and mulching them into the soil represents an alternative. Here we hypothesize that green manuring positively affects the soil...

Alpine grasslands in Europe were shaped by traditional low-input management for centuries. Especially those above the natural treeline were used as summer pastures for sheep and cattle. However, little knowledge is available on the structure and function of soil macro-invertebrate communities of high alpine zones (i.e. high elevation and high latit...

Soil macro-invertebrates play an important role in the formation and functioning of soils, which makes them indispensable for all terrestrial ecosystems, including high alpine soils. However, in the latter, knowledge on species identity, diversity, and functionality of macro-invertebrate soil communities is scarce. Here, we address this knowledge g...

The soil fauna on 22 sites in the LTSER area “Matschertal/Val Mazia” was investigated in summer 2016. The sites were located along an altitudinal gradient of dry pastures from 1000 to 2500 m, and a land-use transect at 1500 m of intensively managed hay meadows, dry pastures and three forest types (Norway spruce, European larch, and a Swiss stone pi...

Im Jahr 2016 wurden im LTSER-Gebiet Matscher Tal (IT25 – Val Mazia/Matscher Tal) intensive Untersuchungen der Makrofauna, u.a. Arachnida, durchgeführt. Im Detail waren es folgende Projekte: (1) die intensive multidisziplinäre Forschungswoche mit 30 Experten (siehe Details in RIEF et al. 2017 und RIEF & BALLINI 2017 in diesem Band); und (2) Monitori...

The Vinschgau in South Tyrol (north of Italy) represents one of few inner Alpine dry valleys with an average annual precipitation of 400 mm. These dry conditions lead to the formation of open grassland harboring rare plant and animal species, and maintained by traditional and extensive management. At the LTSER area “Matsch-Mazia” in the central par...

Alpine mountain areas are currently in a state of change. Traditional, extensive land-use has been either intensified or abandoned due to socio-economic reasons, the latter resulting in shrub encroachment, shifts within the plant communities, and thus in alterations in resource availability and physical environment for plants and invertebrates livi...

Mountain areas cover about 12.3% of the global terrestrial land area and hold up approximately one-quarter of the known species, considering them as biodiversity hot spots. The Alps are the most prominent mountain area in Europe, and probably the most-studied. However, high elevation (and also high latitude) ecosystems were neglected worldwide by s...

Although soil invertebrates play a decisive role in maintaining ecosystem functioning, little is known about their structural composition in Alpine soils and how their abundances are affected by the currently ongoing land-use changes. In this study, we re-assessed the soil macrofauna community structure of managed and abandoned Alpine pastureland,...

Alpine grasslands have been extensively managed for hundreds of years resulting in highly diverse semi-natural landscapes. The abandonment of these areas – which are of great conservation interest for the European Union, regional conservation organisations and locals – caused increased shrub encroachment, and subsequently shifts within the plant co...

Alpine ecosystems are currently undergoing extensive land‐use changes, therefore a better understanding of how environmental change will affect ecosystem services such as litter decomposition is urgently needed. Yet, little is known about the effect of decomposer diversity on litter decomposition in alpine areas. In this study we examined the indiv...

Alpine grasslands nowadays undergo critical management changes. After having been shaped by hundreds of years of traditional and extensive management, they are now largely subjected to either intensive agriculture or abandonment. In the Matsch Valley, a side valley of Vinschgau Valley in South Tyrol, Italy – one of the most arid regions of the Alps...

Little is known about the effect of decomposer diversity on litter decomposition in alpine areas. Especially under the premise that alpine ecosystems are very sensitive to global change and are currently undergoing extensive land-use changes, a better understanding is needed to predict how environmental change will affect litter decomposition. A me...

Alpine semi-natural grasslands were formed over hundreds of years of traditional and extensive management resulting in a distinct flora and fauna, high biodiversity as well as high cultural and aesthetic value. Economic changes in the last century led to the abandonment of a large number of alpine pasturelands. However, consequences of abandonment...

Many ecologic studies about the impacts of land-use changes are conducted for short periods due to financial aspects. However, to measure real effects, long-term investigations are needed in many cases. In this project four alpine sites – both a managed and an abandoned alpine meadow and pasture, respectively, located on 1900 to 2000m a.s.l. – wher...

In dieser Masterarbeit wurde das Nahrungsnetz wirbelloser Tiere der Größenordnung Makrofauna (größer als 2 mm) in hochalpinen Rasen auf 2500 und 2600 m erhoben. Dazu bedienten wir uns klassischer Methoden durch Entnahme von Bodenproben und der Trockenextraktion nach KEMSPON ET AL. An vier unterschiedlichen Probenflächen wurden an drei Terminen je 6...