The use of anthropogenic environments by terrestrial invertebrates in Great Britain

Humans are, arguably, ecosystem engineers. They have been changing the Earth for millennia, driving the formation of novel combinations of species and abiotic elements. In this thesis, I investigate the dynamics of terrestrial invertebrates in response to human generated novel ecosystems.

I generated species distribution models to find the habitat associations of each of over 1,700 species of invertebrates. These were combined with human modification scores for each of 18 land cover classes to provide a value of human association for each species. I found that human associated species are increasing in range more than relatively human avoidant species, and that, contrary to conventional wisdom, human associates are just as often habitat specialists as they are habitat generalists.

I then took the associations of species with each habitat to explore relationships between land cover classes, asking the question of ‘where’ species in novel ecosystems came from. I found that the most human modified environments share species with a range of other habitats, ranging from the most to the least human modified.

I finally used the phylogenies of various taxonomic groups to determine the role of human association in driving macroevolutionary trends. I found a significant phylogenetic signal for some, but not all, of the taxonomic groups used throughout this thesis, and found a relationship between human association, diet and lifestyle for spiders, butterflies and moths.

It appears that many human associated species are not generalists, but are habitat and dietary specialists that have adapted to or are well suited for human modified environments. In addition, human modified environments have strong links to less modified environments, suggesting strong conservation implications for the most human modified environments. I discuss the implications of this work, including recommendations for integrating considerations of human history and culture into ecological research and conservation practice.