4187 2009 deu article 1 2010-08-10 -- -- Integrating environmental conditions and functional life-history traits for riparian arthropod conservation planning River banks are naturally disturbed habitats, in which local flood events and the landscape structure are expected to govern riparian species assemblages. Not solely effects of flooding per se, but also related changes in vegetation structure will affect species’ distribution. By elucidating the relationships between species’ occurrence and multivariate habitat conditions on a restricted spatial scale, insight into conservation strategies to preserve riparian species is gained. Ordination and grouping methods revealed important environmental and functional trait constraints on species composition of predatory riparian arthropod assemblages. Mainly flooding disturbance appeared to affect spider and carabid beetle species composition. Habitat affinity and dispersal ability were retained as important traits explaining similarity between arthropod assemblages. River banks similar in species composition differed in absolute and functional group species richness. Furthermore, Poisson regressions demonstrated the importance of variation in discharge regime, sediment composition and vegetation structure for the preservation of rare riparian arthropods. Whereas hygrophilic species benefited from increased vegetation cover, xerothermophilic specialists were favoured by increased flooding disturbance. In contrast to flight-active riparian carabids occurring throughout the river system, especially cursorial spiders are expected to go extinct under increased anthropogenic alterations of discharge regimes. We show the importance of a dynamic and evidence-based approach of river management on a local scale to preserve vulnerable riparian arthropods. In general, river restoration should generate the required heterogeneity in environmental conditions (e.g. dynamic processes) at the river bank level, thereby increasing the sustainability of riverine landscapes. More-over, we argue that the understanding of functional responses towards environmental factors results in general and widely applicable guiding concepts for species conservation. urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-50148 5014 In: Biological conservation (2009) 142, 625 - 637. - doi: 10.1016/j.biocon.2008.11.015 Deutsches Urheberrecht Kevin Lambeets Martijn L. Vandegehuchte Jean-Pierre Maelfait Dries Bonte deu swd Laufkäfer deu swd Flussufer eng uncontrolled carabid beetles eng uncontrolled flooding disturbance eng uncontrolled multi-species approach eng uncontrolled lowland river banks eng uncontrolled river restoration eng uncontrolled spiders Biowissenschaften; Biologie open_access Theodor-Boveri-Institut für Biowissenschaften Universität Würzburg https://opus.bibliothek.uni-wuerzburg.de/files/4187/Lambeets_Integration_BiolCons142s625.pdf