7: Grasslands in agriculture and their potential to support a resilient landscape

Land use changes have altered grasslands within the landscape, with over 90% of grassland systems converted to agriculture or some other use in north temperate regions. Reintegrating grasslands into agricultural landscapes can increase biodiversity and provide valuable ecosystem services. Grasslands harbor diverse and abundant arthropod communities. These arthropod communities provide important ecosystem services that extend beyond grassland boundaries and spillover into surrounding habitats. Ants are an ecologically dominant taxonomic group but are often overlooked within agricultural landscapes. Despite growing evidence that suggests ants are important components in agricultural landscapes, relatively little work explores their contribution in temperate regions. To address these knowledge gaps we have explored how land use, site management, soil quality, and planting diversity affects ant communities across 20 grassland sites (8-12 years post restoration). We have also measured how these factors affect sentinel egg removal by ants, a proxy for measuring natural pest control services. We found that distance to agricultural fields and soil properties effects ant species diversity but egg removal is not influenced by land use or other site measures, including ant species diversity. It appears that grasslands 8-12 years post restoration have similar ant communities and similar egg removal rates. In manipulative studies, we have found that when ant populations are reduced there is a significant decrease in egg removal. Future land use changes and contraction of grasslands may have important implications for ants within agricultural landscapes and this may affect natural pest control services.