| 1. |
- Asplund, Johan, et al.
(författare)
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Removal of secondary compounds increases invertebrate abundance in lichens
- 2015
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Ingår i: Fungal Ecology. - : Elsevier BV. - 1754-5048 .- 1878-0083. ; 18, s. 18-25
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We investigated how lichen carbon-based secondary compounds (CBSCs) affect abundance of invertebrates in five lichen species growing on the forest floor (Cladonia rangiferina, Cladonia stellaris) or on tree trunks (Evernia prunastri, Hypogymnia physodes, Pseudevemia furfuracea). To do this, CBSCs were removed by rinsing lichen thalli in acetone (which has no adverse effects on the lichens) and the lichens were re-transplanted in their natural habitat. After 4 months there was higher abundance of mites, springtails and spiders in the three epiphytic lichens that had their CBSC concentrations reduced. The increase in predatory spiders following CBSC reduction suggests that the compounds have multitrophic consequences. The acetone treatment reduced the number of nematodes in four of the lichen species. Given that lichens serve as important habitats for a diverse range of invertebrates, increased knowledge of how lichen CBSCs may regulate their abundance helps us to better understand the role that lichens and their defence compounds play in structuring forest food webs. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd and The British Mycological Society. All rights reserved.
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| 2. |
- Asplund, Johan, et al.
(författare)
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The influence of tree-scale and ecosystem-scale factors on epiphytic lichen communities across a long-term retrogressive chronosequence
- 2014
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Ingår i: Journal of Vegetation Science. - : Wiley. - 1100-9233 .- 1654-1103. ; 25, s. 1100-1111
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Questions: We tested the relationship between total cover, species richness and composition of epiphytic lichens on trunks of Betula pubescens and ecosystem retrogression (i.e. prolonged absence of major disturbance). We then investigated how the relationships changed when also accounting for tree-scale factors (aspect, height and bark characteristics) and ecosystem-scale factors (e. g. light transmission, tree species diversity and soil fertility).Location: Thirty forested islands in northern Sweden differing in fire history, which collectively represent a retrogressive chronosequence spanning ca. 5000 yr.Results: Total lichen cover responded negatively to long-term absence of major disturbance, but only at exposed positions on the tree trunk, indicating that lichen cover on substrates with more favourable microclimates is less susceptible to environmental change at the ecosystem scale. Further, although there was no overall effect of island size on lichen species richness, we did find a significant interactive effect between island size and height on trunk on species richness. This emerged because species richness decreased with retrogression for lichen communities at breast height, but showed a hump-shaped response to retrogression at the trunk base. Shifts in ecosystem properties with retrogression explained some of the variation in lichen community composition, but most of the variation could be explained by tree-scale factors, notably height on the trunk.Conclusions: While it has frequently been shown that lichens increase in abundance and richness during the first two or three centuries of succession, our results highlight that over a much longer time scale, encompassing soil aging and declining soil fertility, the lichen flora can be negatively affected. However, these effects are heavily mediated by tree-scale factors. These changes in the lichen community may be of potential importance for ecosystem processes and higher trophic level interactions driven by lichen communities.
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| 3. |
- Bahram, Mohammad, et al.
(författare)
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Frontiers in soil ecology—Insights from the World Biodiversity Forum 2022
- 2022
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Ingår i: Journal of Sustainable Agriculture and Environment. - : Wiley. - 2767-035X. ; 1, s. 245-261
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Global change is affecting soil biodiversity and functioning across all terrestrial ecosystems. Still, much is unknown about how soil biodiversity and function will change in the future in response to simultaneous alterations in climate and land use, as well as other environmental drivers. It is crucial to understand the direct, indirect and interactive effects of global change drivers on soil communities and ecosystems across environmental contexts, not only today but also in the near future. This is particularly relevant for international efforts to tackle climate change like the Paris Agreement, and considering the failure to achieve the 2020 biodiversity targets, especially the target of halting soil degradation. Here, we outline the main frontiers related to soil ecology that were presented and discussed at the thematic sessions of the World Biodiversity Forum 2022 in Davos, Switzerland. We highlight multiple frontiers of knowledge associated with data integration, causal inference, soil biodiversity and function scenarios, critical soil biodiversity facets, underrepresented drivers, global collaboration, knowledge application and transdisciplinarity, as well as policy and public communication. These identified research priorities are not only of immediate interest to the scientific community but may also be considered in research priority programmes and calls for funding.
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| 4. |
- Bokhorst, Stef Frederik, et al.
(författare)
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Contrasting responses of springtails and mites to elevation and vegetation type in the sub-Arctic
- 2018
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Ingår i: Pedobiologia. - : Elsevier. - 0031-4056 .- 1873-1511. ; 67, s. 57-64
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Climate change is affecting the species composition and functioning of Arctic and sub-Arctic plant and soil communities. Here we studied patterns in soil microarthropod (springtails and mites) communities across a gradient of increasing elevation that spanned 450 m, across which mean temperature declined by approximately 2.5 degrees C, in sub-Arctic Sweden. Across this gradient we characterized microarthropod communities in each of two types of vegetation, i.e., heath and meadow, to determine whether their responses to declining temperature differed with vegetation type. Mite abundance declined with increasing elevation, while springtail abundance showed the opposite response. Springtail communities were dominated by larger species at higher elevation. Mite abundance was unaffected by vegetation type, while springtail abundance was 53% higher in the heath than meadow vegetation across the gradient. Springtails but not mites responded differently to elevation in heath and meadow vegetation; hemi-edaphic species dominated in the heath at higher elevation while epiedaphic species dominated in the meadow. Our results suggest that sub-Arctic mite and springtail communities will likely respond in contrasting ways to changes in vegetation and soil properties resulting from climate warming.
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| 5. |
- Bokhorst, Stef Frederik, et al.
(författare)
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Lichen physiological traits and growth forms affect communities of associated invertebrates
- 2015
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Ingår i: Ecology. - : Wiley. - 0012-9658 .- 1939-9170. ; 96, s. 2394-2407
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- While there has been much interest in the relationships between traits of primary producers and composition of associated invertebrate consumer communities, our knowledge is largely based on studies from vascular plants, while other types of functionally important producers, such as lichens, have rarely been considered. To address how physiological traits of lichens drive community composition of invertebrates, we collected thalli from 27 lichen species from southern Norway and quantified the communities of associated springtails, mites, and nematodes. For each lichen species, we measured key physiological thallus traits and determined whether invertebrate communities were correlated with these traits. We also explored whether invertebrate communities differed among lichen groups, categorized according to nitrogen-fixing ability, growth form, and substratum. Lichen traits explained up to 39% of the variation in abundances of major invertebrate groups. For many invertebrate groups, abundance was positively correlated with lichen N and P concentrations, N: P ratio, and the percentage of water content on saturation (WC), but had few relationships with concentrations of carbon-based secondary compounds. Diversity and taxonomic richness of invertebrate groups were sometimes also correlated with lichen N and N: P ratios. Nitrogen-fixing lichens showed higher abundance and diversity of some invertebrate groups than did non-N-fixing lichens. However, this emerged in part because most N-fixing lichens have a foliose growth form that benefits invertebrates, through improving the microclimate, independently of N concentration. Furthermore, invertebrate communities associated with terricolous lichens were determined more by their close proximity to the soil invertebrate pool than by lichen traits. Overall, our results reveal that differences between lichen species have a large impact on the invertebrate communities that live among the thalli. Different invertebrate groups show contrasting responses to traits that are indicative of thallus quality (nutrient concentrations), and thallus growth form is often an important determinant of the invertebrate community. Given the large diversity of lichen traits and growth forms that occur in many ecosystems, lichen-invertebrate communities may be an important contributor to overall community diversity in boreal forests.
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| 6. |
- Bokhorst, Stef Frederik, et al.
(författare)
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Responses of communities of soil organisms and plants to soil aging at two contrasting long-term chronosequences
- 2017
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Ingår i: Soil Biology and Biochemistry. - : Elsevier BV. - 0038-0717 .- 1879-3428. ; 106, s. 69-79
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Soil fertility and vegetation are major drivers of soil communities. Soil community responses to vegetation development and associated changes in soil fertility have been mostly reported for chronosequences that span time scales from decades to centuries. Here we evaluated soil communities for two contrasting chronosequences, the Franz Josef chronosequence in southern New Zealand caused by glacial retreat and spanning 120,000 years, and the Cooloola chronosequence in eastern Australia caused by aeolian movement of sand that spans 700,000 years. Both chronosequences feature later-phase retrogressive stages characterized by reduced nutrient availability and plant stature. We hypothesized that soil communities would mirror the patterns of vegetation across these long-term chronosequences with organism biomasses, abundances and diversity increasing throughout early stages of the succession and declining at retrogression stages. The hypothesis was not consistently supported. Bacterial and fungal biomass increased across the youngest chronosequence stages but remained unchanged across the later stages, while fungal-to-bacterial ratios increased throughout. Microbial biomass was related to soil nitrogen concentrations across both chronosequences. Invertebrate abundance and richness increased during the early stages of ecosystem development in both chronosequences, but different groups peaked at different stages at each chronosequence, and not all invertebrate groups declined during the retrogressive stages. Invertebrate groups had no consistent correlations with biotic or abiotic ecosystem properties across either chronosequence. Our study demorBtrates that soil organisms track changes in plant biomass and richness and soil fertility during the initial stages of both chronosequences, but with increasing age of the chronosequences, these relationships weaken and other factors drive the soil community. Possible explanations for the different patterns in soil communities at the two chronosequences include that they differ strongly in soil organic matter, nutrient concentrations and abundances of soil organisms (all of which are much higher at Franz Josef than Cooloola), overlaid with different macroclimate and geology, so that different factors are likely to restrict the presence of particular organisms across both chronosequences. As such, while soil fertility and vegetation are widely recognized as important drivers of the soil community, the manner in which these factors directly and indirectly shape the soil community can vary greatly across organism groups, among chronosequences, and over the time scales that ecosystems develop. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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| 7. |
- Bowd, Elle J., et al.
(författare)
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Temporal dynamics of soil fungi in a pyrodiverse dry-sclerophyll forest
- 2023
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Ingår i: Molecular Ecology. - : John Wiley & Sons. - 0962-1083 .- 1365-294X. ; 32:15, s. 4181-4198
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Fire is a major evolutionary and ecological driver that shapes biodiversity in forests. While above-ground community responses to fire have been well-documented, those below-ground are much less understood. However, below-ground communities, including fungi, play key roles in forests and facilitate the recovery of other organisms after fire. Here, we used internal transcribed spacer (ITS) meta-barcoding data from forests with three different times since fire [short (3 years), medium (13–19 years) and long (>26 years)] to characterize the temporal responses of soil fungal communities across functional groups, ectomycorrhizal exploration strategies and inter-guild associations. Our findings indicate that fire effects on fungal communities are strongest in the short to medium term, with clear distinctions between communities in forests with a short time (3 years) since fire, a medium time (13–19 years) and a long time (>26 years) since fire. Ectomycorrhizal fungi were disproportionately impacted by fire relative to saprotrophs, but the direction of the response varied depending on morphological structures and exploration strategies. For instance, short-distance ectomycorrhizal fungi increased with recent fire, while medium-distance (fringe) ectomycorrhizal fungi decreased. Further, we detected strong, negative inter-guild associations between ectomycorrhizal and saprotrophic fungi but only at medium and long times since fire. Given the functional significance of fungi, the temporal changes in fungal composition, inter-guild associations and functional groups after fire demonstrated in our study may have functional implications that require adaptive management to curtail.
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| 8. |
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| 9. |
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| 10. |
- De Long, Jonathan, et al.
(författare)
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Contrasting Responses of Soil Microbial and Nematode Communities to Warming and Plant Functional Group Removal Across a Post-fire Boreal Forest Successional Gradient
- 2016
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Ingår i: Ecosystems (New York. Print). - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1432-9840 .- 1435-0629. ; 19:2, s. 339-355
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Global warming is causing increases in surface temperatures and has the potential to influence the structure of soil microbial and faunal communities. However, little is known about how warming interacts with other ecosystem drivers, such as plant functional groups or changes associated with succession, to affect the soil community and thereby alter ecosystem functioning. We investigated how experimental warming and the removal of plant functional groups along a post-fire boreal forest successional gradient impacted soil microbial and nematode communities. Our results showed that warming altered soil microbial communities and favored bacterial-based microbial communities, but these effects were mediated by mosses and shrubs, and often varied with successional stage. Meanwhile, the nematode community was generally unaffected by warming and was positively affected by the presence of mosses and shrubs, with these effects mostly independent of successional stage. These results highlight that different groups of soil organisms may respond dissimilarly to interactions between warming and changes to plant functional groups, with likely consequences for ecosystem functioning that may vary with successional stage. Due to the ubiquitous presence of shrubs and mosses in boreal forests, the effects observed in this study are likely to be significant over a large proportion of the terrestrial land surface. Our results demonstrate that it is crucial to consider interactive effects between warming, plant functional groups, and successional stage when predicting soil community responses to global climate change in forested ecosystems.
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