Functional responses

Finally, we found that Functional Richness (Fric), Rao’s quadratic entropy (RaoQ), and the percentage of parasitoids species significantly covaried with the vegetation structure, being higher in trees with higher grass cover and taller herbs, independently of the treatment (Parasitoids r2 = 0.10, p = 0.045; RaoQ: r2 = 0.10, p = 0.030 and Fric: 0.15 p = 0.006; Figure 5B, Tables S15-16).
DISCUSSION
Thanks to DNA metabarcoding, we could perform the most thorough analyses up to date on the effects of livestock on arthropod communities in Iberian dehesas, the most widespread silvopastoral system in Europe (Moreno & Pulido, 2009). We detected hundreds of MOTUs in a reduced time compared to traditional methods. In control trees (livestock present) vegetation cover and height were lower, and so were the richness and diversity of arthropods at MOTU and Family level. Grass cover started to increase just one year after livestock removal. However, arthropod diversity and taxonomic richness did not peak at long-term exclosures but at short-term ones. In long-term exclosures arthropod community composition showed a higher differentiation, both among them and compared to control and short-term exclosure ones.