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In woodlands, land use legacy, but also present habitat management can influence biodiversity and ecosystem functions in various ways. However, little is known about how former and current land use interact in woodlands with different habitat continuity and tree age. The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of both habitat continuity and tree age on ground beetles. We performed a field study in the nature reserve “Lüneburger Heide” (Germany). The study area comprised ancient woodland embedded in a matrix of recent woodland. We defined four woodland types by combining ancient and recent woodland with young and old trees and analysed five replicate plots within each of the resulting four woodland types. Habitat continuity, tree age as well as the combination of both of these factors had no significant impact on ground beetle species diversity, abundance, biomass, and evenness with most woodland species occurring on near to all of the four types of woodland plots. Four species, however, showed a significant preference for one of the specified woodland types studied. Our findings provide evidence that all woodland-inhabiting ground beetles of this region are able to colonize new habitats in the continuous woodland matrix, at least, up until a distance of 2.3 km. We call for a heterogeneous woodland management and increasing habitat connectivity to protect both species with a preference for ancient woodland sites and/or old trees and those species which prefer early successional stages.

Dung beetles (Scarabaeidae) are common detritivores, and especially the tunnelling genera Geotrupes, Anoplotrupes and Onthophagus enhance the soil quality and support nutrient cycles by rapid burial of mammalian dung. These functionally important beetles are faced with a wide range of anthropogenic disturbances and changes in environmental conditions due to land use. We thus conducted quantitative surveys of the abundance (converted to total biomass) of dung beetles and their dung removal rates (g per two days) in 150 forest and 150 grassland sites with varying land-use intensity, located in north-east, central and south-west Germany. We used dung from livestock (cow, sheep, horse) and game animals (wild boar, red deer and fox) to provide a characteristic spectrum of dung resources on each site. Most dung beetle species showed habitat preferences: Anoplotrupes, Typhaeus and several Aphodius species almost exclusively occurred in forests, while most Onthophagus individuals were found in grasslands. In total we collected 18780 individuals from 33 species. The average dung beetle biomass was 36 times higher in forests than in grasslands, and their effective dung removal rate was 3 times increased. The beetles’ total biomass was strongly correlated to their removal rates. In forests, the amount of wood harvesting significantly reduced dung removal rates by 20%, and mowing frequency (−7%) and fertilisation (−4%) had a significant negative effect in grasslands. Dung removal by beetles increased with grazing intensity (+6%), however, and was higher in non-native coniferous forests (+22%). Overall, our study demonstrates negative effects of habitat conversion from forest to grassland, and negative effects of land-use intensity within forests and grasslands on dung beetle activities.