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- Guidetti, Roberto, et al.
(författare)
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Diversity of the tardigrade communities in the Norwegian forests
- 2022
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: Tardigrades are common in most habitats, however few studies have focused on large faunistic survey, specifically on tardigrade diversity in forests. Up to now, only 61 species have been recorded in different types of forest in Norway with an additional 25 found in limnic environments in forests. Although little is known about the ecological preferences of many species, previous studies have found that tardigrade diversity and community composition are significantly affected by ecological variables. In this study we associate georeferenced tardigrade species records with forest type, substrate type and substrate composition in order to see if tardigrade diversity and species communities can be associated with ecological characteristics of Norwegian forests. Methods: In total 390 moss, lichen and litter samples were collected from 12 forests in central and southern Norway in the summers of 2017 and 2018 and later stored in paper envelopes. For the identification modern literature and keys forspecific genera and groups of species were used. For statistical analyses, moss and lichen substrate of each sample was classified according to the main species, life form, growth forms and habitat of substrate and associated with each tardigrade identification and sample metadata. Results: A total of 17 407 specimens were identified, encompassing in total 132 species (including some new species). Species richness increases with precipitation, but does not change with temperature or precipitation seasonality. The distribution of species richness between life forms and forest types showed considerable variation within and among the variables. Disregarding variables with low sample numbers, among life forms only acrocarpous moss samples appeared to deviate with respect to species richness, containing less species than substrates with other life forms. Conclusions: Tardigrades in Norwegian forest are extremely abundant, frequent and diverse. Moreover, it appears that that certain species and/or entirecommunities prefer specific microhabitats.
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| 2. |
- Guidetti, Roberto, et al.
(författare)
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Tardigrade diversity and community composition across Norwegian boreal forests
- 2023
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Ingår i: Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. - : Oxford University Press. - 0024-4082 .- 1096-3642.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Tardigrades are common in many terrestrial environments and habitats. Although little is known on their ecological preferences, previous studies found diversity and community composition significantly affected by various variables. This study associated tardigrade species’ records with climatic variables, forest type, and substrate categories exploring tardigrade diversity and species communities to find associations with ecological characteristics of Norwegian forests. A total of 17 473 specimens were identified, encompassing 131 species (including putatively new species) from 305 samples of different substrates (leaf litter, bryophytes, and lichens). Bryophytes and lichens of samples were classified according to the main species, and growth form, and associated with tardigrade species and sample metadata. Tardigrade species’ richness was related to climatic variables and forest type, increased with precipitation, decreased with summer temperature, and not varied with precipitation seasonality. Although there was an unbalanced representation of substrate categories in the different forest types, some tendencies were detectable. Mixed oak and birch forests reached the highest species’ richness. Tardigrade community composition varied between substrate categories and, to a lesser degree, between forest types, but not with climatic variables. Our study highlights the importance of large-scale variables on tardigrade diversity, and substrate categories for tardigrade community composition.
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