The Use and Prospects of Nonlethal Methods in Entomology.

Arthropods are declining globally, and entomologists ought to be in the forefront of protecting them. However, entomological study methods are typically lethal, and we argue that this makes the ethical status of the profession precarious. Lethal methods are used in most studies, even those that aim to support arthropod conservation. Additionally, almost all collecting methods result in bycatch, and a first step toward less destructive research practices is to minimize bycatch and/or ensure its proper storage and use. In this review, we describe the available suite of nonlethal methods with the aim of promoting their use. We classify nonlethal methods into (a) reuse of already collected material, (b) methods that are damaging but not lethal, (c) methods that modify behavior, and (d) true nonlethal methods. Artificial intelligence and miniaturization will help to extend the nonlethal methodological toolkit, but the need for further method development and testing remains.

Urbanization reduces gut bacterial microbiome diversity in a specialist ground beetle, Carabus convexus.

Urbanization is rapidly shaping and transforming natural environments, creating networks of modified land types. These urbanization-driven modifications lead to local extinctions of several species, but the surviving ones also face numerous novel selection pressures, including exposure to pollutants, habitat alteration, and shifts in food availability and diversity. Based on the assumption that the environmental pool of microorganisms is reduced in urban habitats due to habitat alteration, biodiversity loss, and pollution, we hypothesized that the diversity of bacterial microbiome in digestive tracts of arthropods would be lower in urban than rural habitats. Investigating the gut bacterial communities of a specialist ground beetle, Carabus convexus, in forested rural versus urban habitats by next generation high-throughput sequencing of the bacterial 16S rRNA gene, we identified 3839 bacterial amplicon sequence variants. The composition of gut bacterial samples did not significantly differ by habitat (rural vs. urban), sex (female vs. male), sampling date (early vs. late spring), or their interaction. The microbiome diversity (evaluated by the Rényi diversity function), however, was higher in rural than urban adults. Our findings demonstrate that urbanization significantly reduced the diversity of the gut bacterial microbiome in C. convexus.

Global patterns of genomic and phenotypic variation in the invasive harlequin ladybird.

BACKGROUND: The harlequin ladybird Harmonia axyridis (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae), native to Asia, has been introduced to other major continents where it has caused serious negative impacts on local biodiversity. Though notable advances to understand its invasion success have been made during the past decade, especially with then newer molecular tools, the conclusions reached remain to be confirmed with more advanced genomic analyses and especially using more samples from larger geographical regions across the native range. Furthermore, although H. axyridis is one of the best studied invasive insect species with respect to life history traits (often comparing invasive and native populations), the traits responsible for its colonization success in non-native areas warrant more research. RESULTS: Our analyses of genome-wide nuclear population structure indicated that an eastern Chinese population could be the source of all non-native populations and revealed several putatively adaptive candidate genomic loci involved in body color variation, visual perception, and hemolymph synthesis. Our estimates of evolutionary history indicate (1) asymmetric migration with varying population sizes across its native and non-native range, (2) a recent admixture between eastern Chinese and American populations in Europe, (3) signatures of a large progressive, historical bottleneck in the common ancestors of both populations and smaller effective sizes of the non-native population, and (4) the southwest origin and subsequent dispersal routes within its native range in China. In addition, we found that while two mitochondrial haplotypes-Hap1 and Hap2 were dominant in the native range, Hap1 was the only dominant haplotype in the non-native range. Our laboratory observations in both China and USA found statistical yet slight differences between Hap1 and Hap2 in some of life history traits. CONCLUSIONS: Our study on H. axyridis provides new insights into its invasion processes into other major continents from its native Asian range, reconstructs a geographic range evolution across its native region China, and tentatively suggests that its invasiveness may differ between mitochondrial haplotypes.

Interactions Among Native and Non-Native Predatory Coccinellidae Influence Biological Control and Biodiversity.

Over the past 30 yr, multiple species of predatory Coccinellidae, prominently Coccinella septempunctata L. and Harmonia axyridis (Pallas) (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) have spread to new continents, influencing biodiversity and biological control. Here we review the mechanisms underlying these ecological interactions, focusing on multi-year field studies of native and non-native coccinellids and those using molecular and quantitative ecological methods. Field data from Asia show that H. axyridis, C. septempunctata, and Propylea japonica (Thunberg) (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) are regularly among the most abundant predatory species but their rank varies by habitat. Studies of these species in their native Asian range, primarily related to their range in mainland China, document different patterns of seasonal abundance, species specific associations with prey, and habitat separation. Intraguild predation is well documented both in Asia and in newly invaded areas, and H. axyridis benefits most from this interaction. Harmonia axyridis also seems to rely more on cannibalism in times of prey scarcity than other species, and relatively sparse data indicate a lower predation pressure on it from natural enemies of coccinellids. Declines in the abundance of native coccinellids following the spread and increase of non-native species, documented in several multi-year studies on several continents, is a major concern for native biodiversity and the persistence of native coccinellid species. We suggest that future studies focus more attention on the community ecology of these invasive species in their native habitats.

Increasing temperature cuts back crop yields in Hungary over the last 90 years.

The transformation of climatic regime has an undeniable impact on plant production, but we rarely have long enough date series to examine the unfolding of such effects. The clarification of the relationship between crop plants and climate has a near-immediate importance due to the impending human-made global change. This study investigated the relationship between temperature, precipitation, drought intensity and the yields of four major cereals in Hungary between 1921 and 2010. The analysis of 30-year segments indicated a monotonously increasing negative impact of temperature on crop yields. A 1°C temperature increase reduced the yield of the four main cereals by 9.6%-14.8% in 1981-2010, which revealed the vulnerability of Eastern European crop farming to recent climate change. Climate accounted for 17%-39% of yield variability over the past 90 years, but this figure reached 33%-67% between 1981 and 2010. Our analysis supports the claim that the mid-20th century green revolution improved yields "at the mercy of the weather": during this period, the impact of increasing fertilization and mechanisation coincided with climatic conditions that were more favourable than today. Crop yields in Eastern Europe have been stagnating or decreasing since the mid-1980s. Although usually attributed to the large socio-economic changes sweeping the region, our analysis indicates that a warming climate is at least partially responsible for this trend. Such a robust impact of increasing temperatures on crop yields also constitutes an obvious warning for this core grain-growing region of the world.

Spatiotemporal distancing of crops reduces pest pressure while maintaining conservation biocontrol in oilseed rape.

BACKGROUND: Agricultural landscapes provide resources for arthropod pests as well as their natural enemies. To develop integrated pest management (IPM) practices, it is important to understand how spatiotemporal location influences crop colonization and damage severity. We performed a 3-year (2016-2018) field experiment in winter oilseed rape (OSR, Brassica napus) fields in Estonia, where half of the fields were within 500 m of the location of the previous year's winter OSR field and half were outside this zone. We investigated how distance from the previous year's OSR crop influences the infestation and parasitism rates of two of its most important pests: the pollen beetle (Brassicogethes aeneus) and the cabbage seed weevil (Ceutorhynchus obstrictus). RESULTS: When the distance from the previous year's OSR crop was >500 m, we recorded significantly reduced pest pressure by both B. aeneus and C. obstrictus in the study fields. Biocontrol of both pests, provided by parasitic wasps, was high in each study year and commonly not affected by distance. Mean parasitism rates of B. aeneus were >31%, occasionally reaching >70%; for C. obstrictus, mean parasitism was >46%, reaching up to 79%, thereby providing effective biocontrol for both pest species. CONCLUSION: Spatiotemporal separation of OSR fields can reduce pest pressure without resulting in reduced parasitism of OSR pests. This supports a spatiotemporal field separation concept as an effective and sustainable technique for IPM in OSR. © 2023 The Authors. Pest Management Science published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society of Chemical Industry.

Ecological filtering shapes the impacts of agricultural deforestation on biodiversity.

The biodiversity impacts of agricultural deforestation vary widely across regions. Previous efforts to explain this variation have focused exclusively on the landscape features and management regimes of agricultural systems, neglecting the potentially critical role of ecological filtering in shaping deforestation tolerance of extant species assemblages at large geographical scales via selection for functional traits. Here we provide a large-scale test of this role using a global database of species abundance ratios between matched agricultural and native forest sites that comprises 71 avian assemblages reported in 44 primary studies, and a companion database of 10 functional traits for all 2,647 species involved. Using meta-analytic, phylogenetic and multivariate methods, we show that beyond agricultural features, filtering by the extent of natural environmental variability and the severity of historical anthropogenic deforestation shapes the varying deforestation impacts across species assemblages. For assemblages under greater environmental variability-proxied by drier and more seasonal climates under a greater disturbance regime-and longer deforestation histories, filtering has attenuated the negative impacts of current deforestation by selecting for functional traits linked to stronger deforestation tolerance. Our study provides a previously largely missing piece of knowledge in understanding and managing the biodiversity consequences of deforestation by agricultural deforestation.

Urbanization decreases species richness, and increases abundance in dry climates whereas decreases in wet climates: A global meta-analysis.

Soil invertebrates have an essential role in decomposition, nutrient turnover and soil structure formation, all of which are strongly threatened by urbanization. Sealing, compaction by trampling and pollution destroy and degrade city soils and potentially damage soil-living invertebrates. The existing literature on how urbanization affects soil invertebrates is inconsistent, presenting both negative and positive effects. Therefore, here we aimed to synthesize the effects of urbanization on soil invertebrates considering their taxonomic (Acari, Annelida, Carabidae, Collembola, Gastropoda, Isopoda, Myriapoda, Nematoda) and functional (soil living vs. soil-related; mobility) identities, as well as to examine how the overall effect is modulated by climatic conditions (total annual precipitation, annual mean ambient temperature), urban heat island effect (based on ambient temperature differences between urban and rural areas) and city population. In a systematic review using hierarchical and categorical meta-analyses, we extracted 158 effect sizes from 75 studies on abundance and 125 effect sizes from 84 studies on species richness. Invertebrate abundance showed an increase (r = 0.085), whereas species richness significantly decreased with increasing urbanization (r = -0.168). The reason behind this could be that a few generalist species can adapt well to the urban environment and achieve strongly elevated densities. The species richness of annelids (r = -0.301), springtails (r = -0.579), and snails (r = -0.233) decreased with advancing urbanization, most probably because these animals are sensitive to soil compaction and pollution, both of which are common consequences of urbanization. The temperature did not modify the effects of urbanization, but precipitation modified the effects on abundance (r = -0.457). Abundance increased with advancing urbanization in drier climates, probably because irrigation increased soil moisture, whereas it decreased in wet climates, as urban areas were drier than their surroundings. Making future cities more climate-neutral could better sustain soil biodiversity.

Discordant spatiotemporal dynamics of functional and phylogenetic diversity of rotiferan communities exposed to aquaculture effluent.

The growth of the human population brought about the global intensification of aquacultural production, and aquaculture became the fastest growing animal husbandry sector. Effluent from aquaculture is an anthropogenic environmental burden, containing organic matter, nutrients and suspended solids that affect water quality especially in the water bodies of high biodiversity and conservation value. Water quality assessment often relies on bioindicators, analysing changes in taxonomic diversity of various freshwater organismal groups. Stepping beyond taxon diversity, we used functional and phylogenetic diversities of rotifers to identify factors affecting their community organization in response to an aquaculture effluent gradient in the largest oxbow lake in the Carpathian Basin, Hungary. Sampling was carried out three times per season at five points along a 3.5 km section of the oxbow lake, including the point of effluent inflow. We used eight traits to evaluate functional diversity: body size, trophi type, feeding mode, protection type, body wall type, corona type, habitat preference and tolerance level. Functional and phylogenetic distances among the 24 species identified indicated trait conservatism. Rotiferan diversity increased with increasing distance from the point of influx in spring and summer. Among the factors affecting community organization in spring and summer, we find examples of environmental filtering, while in autumn the role of biotic interaction is more frequent. Under nutrient-rich conditions in spring and summer, organisms belonging to the same functional group were dominant, whereas under oligotrophic conditions, more diverse but less abundant groups were present. Considering functional and phylogenetic traits allowed us to identify organising forces of rotifer communities in the largest oxbow lake of the Hungarian Lowland.

Flowering Coriander (Coriandrum sativum) Strips Do Not Enhance Ecosystem Services in Azorean Orchards.

The effect of flower strips on ecosystem services (ESs) and disservices (EDs) is routinely assessed following changes in service provider densities without measuring the associated levels of ES/EDs. By using the sentinel approach (i.e., exposing a plant, seeds, and prey models in a standardized way), we tested how coriander (Coriandrum sativum) strips planted in mixed orchards on Terceira Island (Azores, Portugal) affected herbivory on lettuce plants, seed predation on wheat and weed seeds, and predation on artificial caterpillars. Vertebrates had more influence than invertebrates on ESs/EDs. Herbivory (ED) after 2 weeks was similar in the coriander and the control plots (mean ± SD; 2.3% ± 3.3% vs. 2.2% ± 2.9%, n = 32 for both). Seed predation was higher in the control than in the coriander plots for both grain (ED; 30.8% ± 38.9% vs. 15.3% ± 10.8%, n = 18 for both) and weed seeds (ES; 2.5% ± 4.1% vs. 0.4% ± 0.5%, n = 18 for both). Vertebrate predation (ES) rates after 48 h were significantly higher in the control (estimate 9%, 95% CI: 4-20%) than in the coriander plots (3%, 1-8%), while no difference was observed for invertebrate predation. Coriander strips did not support increased ES/reduced ED levels in this setting. The tools used can be effective to quantitatively compare multiple ESs/EDs under different farming management strategies.

Urbanisation generates multiple trait syndromes for terrestrial animal taxa worldwide.

Cities can host significant biological diversity. Yet, urbanisation leads to the loss of habitats, species, and functional groups. Understanding how multiple taxa respond to urbanisation globally is essential to promote and conserve biodiversity in cities. Using a dataset encompassing six terrestrial faunal taxa (amphibians, bats, bees, birds, carabid beetles and reptiles) across 379 cities on 6 continents, we show that urbanisation produces taxon-specific changes in trait composition, with traits related to reproductive strategy showing the strongest response. Our findings suggest that urbanisation results in four trait syndromes (mobile generalists, site specialists, central place foragers, and mobile specialists), with resources associated with reproduction and diet likely driving patterns in traits associated with mobility and body size. Functional diversity measures showed varied responses, leading to shifts in trait space likely driven by critical resource distribution and abundance, and taxon-specific trait syndromes. Maximising opportunities to support taxa with different urban trait syndromes should be pivotal in conservation and management programmes within and among cities. This will reduce the likelihood of biotic homogenisation and helps ensure that urban environments have the capacity to respond to future challenges. These actions are critical to reframe the role of cities in global biodiversity loss.

Urban Individuals of Three Rove Beetle Species Are Not More Exploratory or Risk-Taking Than Rural Conspecifics.

Urbanization is creating changes in environmental and habitat conditions, as well as creating disturbance and threats to urban-associated species. Some traits, such as high exploratory and risk-taking behavior, are beneficial to allow colonization of urban habitats and coping with urbanization-derived pressures. In this study the exploratory and risk-taking behavior of rural and urban individuals of three forest-associated rove beetle species were tested during their main reproductive period by five frequently used behavioral measures. Individuals of all studied species were similarly ranked by all behavioral measures, indicating that the studied rove beetles responded consistently in the different contexts. However, the behavior of beetles was consistent over time for all/most studied species only by using two measures of exploratory behavior. These provide evidence for the existence of the exploratory dimension of personality in rove beetles. We found a higher exploratory behavior in males than females in Ocypus nitens which can be explained by the active searching of males for mating partners. There were no urbanization-related differences in the exploratory behavior of individuals, suggesting that behavioral changes (being more exploratory) may not yield additional fitness benefits in these rove beetle species with good dispersal capacity.

Herbivory on the pedunculate oak along an urbanization gradient in Europe: Effects of impervious surface, local tree cover, and insect feeding guild.

Urbanization is an important driver of the diversity and abundance of tree-associated insect herbivores, but its consequences for insect herbivory are poorly understood. A likely source of variability among studies is the insufficient consideration of intra-urban variability in forest cover. With the help of citizen scientists, we investigated the independent and interactive effects of local canopy cover and percentage of impervious surface on insect herbivory in the pedunculate oak (Quercus robur L.) throughout most of its geographic range in Europe. We found that the damage caused by chewing insect herbivores as well as the incidence of leaf-mining and gall-inducing herbivores consistently decreased with increasing impervious surface around focal oaks. Herbivory by chewing herbivores increased with increasing forest cover, regardless of impervious surface. In contrast, an increase in local canopy cover buffered the negative effect of impervious surface on leaf miners and strengthened its effect on gall inducers. These results show that-just like in non-urban areas-plant-herbivore interactions in cities are structured by a complex set of interacting factors. This highlights that local habitat characteristics within cities have the potential to attenuate or modify the effect of impervious surfaces on biotic interactions.

Can the growing of transgenic maize threaten protected Lepidoptera in Europe?

We evaluated whether protected European butterflies can potentially be at risk if transgenic maize is extensively grown in Central Europe. We explored potential consequences of both insect resistant (IR) and herbicide resistant (HR) transgenic maize. IR maize can produce pollen that is toxic to lepidopteran larvae, and this puts butterfly species at possible risk if the presence of young larvae coincides with maize flowering, during which large quantities of maize pollen can be deposited on vegetation. By considering the timing of maize flowering in Europe and the phenology of the protected Lepidoptera species, we found that 31 species had at least one generation where 50% of the larval stage overlapped with maize flowering, and 69 species for which first instar larvae were present during maize pollen shedding. HR maize allows high concentration herbicide treatments on fields without seasonal limitation, which can drastically reduce weed densities. In cases where such weed species are host plants for protected butterflies, reduced host plant/food availability can result, causing population decreases. By using published information, we first identified the important weed species in major maize-growing European countries. Subsequently, we checked whether the host plants of protected Lepidoptera included species that are common maize weeds. We identified 140 protected species having food plants that are common weeds in one or more of the major European maize-growing countries. If HR maize is grown in Europe, there is a potential hazard that their food plants will seriously decline, causing a subsequent decline of these protected species.

Are There Personality Differences between Rural vs. Urban-Living Individuals of a Specialist Ground Beetle, Carabus convexus?

The world-wide, rapid urbanization is leading to substantial changes in environmental and habitat conditions. These changes, as well as disturbances accompanying urbanization have considerable effects at various levels of the biological organization on wildlife. Understanding behavioral responses to such changes is essential for identifying which organisms may successfully adapt to the altered conditions. In this study, individuals of a forest specialist ground beetle, Carabus convexus, from rural and urban forest patches were tested for their exploratory and risk-taking behavior. Beetles responded consistently in the different contexts; furthermore, by behaving consistently over time, demonstrated that they had personalities. Agglomerative cluster analysis identified two groups of behavioral traits: the exploratory and the risk-taking dimension of personality. Urban females were significantly more exploratory than urban males which can be an adaptation to find high quality food needed to mature eggs in urban habitats, as well as to select favorable microsites for oviposition. Moreover, urban females and males showed more risk-taking behavior than rural females. Urban beetles with more risk-taking behavior may be better able to cope with frequent urbanization-driven disturbance events.

Differences in Life History Traits in Rural vs. Urban Populations of a Specialist Ground Beetle, Carabus convexus.

Urbanization is increasing worldwide and causes substantial changes in environmental parameters, generating various kinds of stress on arthropods, with several harmful consequences. We examined a forest specialist ground beetle, Carabus convexus, in forested habitats to evaluate the changes in four important life history traits between rural and urban populations. Analyzing beetles from the overwintered cohort in their first breeding season, we found no significant differences in body length or body mass between the rural and urban individuals. Body condition, judged by fat reserve scores, was similarly poor in both habitats, indicating that beetles were not able to accumulate substantial fat reserves at either habitat. Females with ripe eggs in their ovaries were first captured at the same time in both areas. The number of ripe eggs, however, was significantly higher in females of the low-density urban population (6.13 eggs/female) than in those of the high-density rural population (4.14 eggs/female), indicating density-dependent fecundity. Altered environmental and habitat conditions by urbanization, however, seemed to cause high mortality during egg hatching and/or larval development, preventing the growth of the urban population to the level of rural one.

Monitoring Arthropods in Azorean Agroecosystems: the project AGRO-ECOSERVICES.

BACKGROUND: The data we present are part of the AGRO-ECOSERVICES project (Assessing ecosystem services and disservices provided by arthropod species in Azorean agroecosystems). The project aims to evaluate the relative importance of native and non-native organisms as ecosystem services (ES) and disservices (ED) providers, by combining novel, direct and quantitative tools for monitoring agro-biodiversity. Ecosystem services include evaluation of natural pest control by predation, seed predation on weed plants, pollination, decomposition and ecosystem disservices, herbivory and seed predation on crop plants. Active Aerial Searching (AAS) (only in maize-fields) and pitfall traps were used to sample the arthropod biodiversity (predatory spiders, true-bugs and beetles and main insect pests) on four agricultural habitats of Terceira Island, namely citrus orchards, low and high elevation maize fields and vineyards. NEW INFORMATION: We provided an inventory of all arthropods recorded in four Azorean agroecosystems (citrus orchards, low and high elevation maize fields and vineyards) from Terceira Island. A total of 50412 specimens were collected, belonging to four classes, 20 orders, 81 families and 200 identified species of arthropods. A total of 127 species are considered introduced (n = 22646) and 69 native non-endemic (n = 24117). Four endemic species were recorded with very few specimens (n = 14) and 3635 specimens belong to unidentified taxa recorded only at genus or family level. Five species are new records for Terceira Island, with Lagriahirta (Linnaeus, 1758) (Coleoptera, Tenebrionidae) being also a new record for the Azores. This publication contributes to a better knowledge of the arthropods communities present in agro-ecosystems of Terceira Island and will serve as a baseline for future monitoring schemes targeting the long-term change in arthropod diversity and abundance.

Associations between carabid beetles and fungi in the light of 200 years of published literature.

Describing and conserving ecological interactions woven into ecosystems is one of the great challenges of the 21st century. Here, we present a unique dataset compiling the biotic interactions between two ecologically and economically important taxa: ground beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae) and fungi. The resulting dataset contains the carabid-fungus associations collected from 392 scientific publications, 129 countries, mostly from the Palearctic region, published over a period of 200 years. With an updated taxonomy to match the currently accepted nomenclature, 3,378 unique associations among 5,564 records were identified between 1,776 carabid and 676 fungal taxa. Ectoparasitic Laboulbeniales were the most frequent fungal group associated with carabids, especially with Trechinae. The proportion of entomopathogens was low. Three different formats of the data have been provided along with an interactive data digest platform for analytical purposes. Our database summarizes the current knowledge on biotic interactions between insects and fungi, while offering a valuable resource to test large-scale hypotheses on those interactions.

Irreproducibility in searches of scientific literature: A comparative analysis.

Repeatability is the cornerstone of science, and it is particularly important for systematic reviews. However, little is known on how researchers' choice of database, and search platform influence the repeatability of systematic reviews. Here, we aim to unveil how the computer environment and the location where the search was initiated from influence hit results.We present a comparative analysis of time-synchronized searches at different institutional locations in the world and evaluate the consistency of hits obtained within each of the search terms using different search platforms.We revealed a large variation among search platforms and showed that PubMed and Scopus returned consistent results to identical search strings from different locations. Google Scholar and Web of Science's Core Collection varied substantially both in the number of returned hits and in the list of individual articles depending on the search location and computing environment. Inconsistency in Web of Science results has most likely emerged from the different licensing packages at different institutions.To maintain scientific integrity and consistency, especially in systematic reviews, action is needed from both the scientific community and scientific search platforms to increase search consistency. Researchers are encouraged to report the search location and the databases used for systematic reviews, and database providers should make search algorithms transparent and revise access rules to titles behind paywalls. Additional options for increasing the repeatability and transparency of systematic reviews are storing both search metadata and hit results in open repositories and using Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to retrieve standardized, machine-readable search metadata.

Predation Pressure on Sentinel Insect Prey Along a Riverside Urbanization Gradient in Hungary.

Urbanization is one of the most important global trends which causes habitat reduction and alteration which are, in turn, the main reasons for the welldocumented reduction in structural and functional diversity in urbanized environments. In contrast, effects on ecological mechanisms are less known. Predation is one of the most important ecological functions because of its communitystructuring effects. We studied six forest habitats along a riverside urbanization gradient in Szeged, a major city in southern Hungary, crossed by the river Tisza, to describe how extreme events (e.g., floods) as primary selective pressure act on adaptation in riparian habitats. We found a generally decreasing predation pressure from rural to urban habitats as predicted by the increasing disturbance hypothesis (higher predator abundances in rural than in urban habitats). The only predators that reacted differently to urbanization were ground active arthropods, where results conformed to the prediction of the intermediate disturbance hypothesis (higher abundance in moderately disturbed suburban habitats). We did not find any evidence that communities exposed to extreme flood events were preadapted to the effects of urbanization. The probable reason is that changes accompanied by urbanization are much faster than natural landscape change, so the communities cannot adapt to them.