| 1. |
- Potapov, Anton M., et al.
(author)
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Global fine-resolution data on springtail abundance and community structure
- 2024
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In: Scientific Data. - : Nature Publishing Group. - 2052-4463. ; 11:1
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Springtails (Collembola) inhabit soils from the Arctic to the Antarctic and comprise an estimated ~32% of all terrestrial arthropods on Earth. Here, we present a global, spatially-explicit database on springtail communities that includes 249,912 occurrences from 44,999 samples and 2,990 sites. These data are mainly raw sample-level records at the species level collected predominantly from private archives of the authors that were quality-controlled and taxonomically-standardised. Despite covering all continents, most of the sample-level data come from the European continent (82.5% of all samples) and represent four habitats: woodlands (57.4%), grasslands (14.0%), agrosystems (13.7%) and scrublands (9.0%). We included sampling by soil layers, and across seasons and years, representing temporal and spatial within-site variation in springtail communities. We also provided data use and sharing guidelines and R code to facilitate the use of the database by other researchers. This data paper describes a static version of the database at the publication date, but the database will be further expanded to include underrepresented regions and linked with trait data.
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| 2. |
- Potapov, Anton M., et al.
(author)
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Globally invariant metabolism but density-diversity mismatch in springtails
- 2023
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In: Nature Communications. - : Springer Nature. - 2041-1723. ; 14:1
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Soil life supports the functioning and biodiversity of terrestrial ecosystems. Springtails (Collembola) are among the most abundant soil arthropods regulating soil fertility and flow of energy through above- and belowground food webs. However, the global distribution of springtail diversity and density, and how these relate to energy fluxes remains unknown. Here, using a global dataset representing 2470 sites, we estimate the total soil springtail biomass at 27.5 megatons carbon, which is threefold higher than wild terrestrial vertebrates, and record peak densities up to 2 million individuals per square meter in the tundra. Despite a 20-fold biomass difference between the tundra and the tropics, springtail energy use (community metabolism) remains similar across the latitudinal gradient, owing to the changes in temperature with latitude. Neither springtail density nor community metabolism is predicted by local species richness, which is high in the tropics, but comparably high in some temperate forests and even tundra. Changes in springtail activity may emerge from latitudinal gradients in temperature, predation and resource limitation in soil communities. Contrasting relationships of biomass, diversity and activity of springtail communities with temperature suggest that climate warming will alter fundamental soil biodiversity metrics in different directions, potentially restructuring terrestrial food webs and affecting soil functioning.
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| 3. |
- Astor, Tina, et al.
(author)
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Underdispersion and overdispersion of traits in terrestrial snail communities on islands
- 2014
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In: Ecology and Evolution. - : Wiley. - 2045-7758. ; 4:11, s. 2090-2102
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Understanding and disentangling different processes underlying the assembly and diversity of communities remains a key challenge in ecology. Species can assemble into communities either randomly or due to deterministic processes. Deterministic assembly leads to species being more similar (underdispersed) or more different (overdispersed) in certain traits than would be expected by chance. However, the relative importance of those processes is not well understood for many organisms, including terrestrial invertebrates. Based on knowledge of a broad range of species traits, we tested for the presence of trait underdispersion (indicating dispersal or environmental filtering) and trait overdispersion (indicating niche partitioning) and their relative importance in explaining land snail community composition on lake islands. The analysis of community assembly was performed using a functional diversity index (Rao's quadratic entropy) in combination with a null model approach. Regression analysis with the effect sizes of the assembly tests and environmental variables gave information on the strength of under- and overdispersion along environmental gradients. Additionally, we examined the link between community weighted mean trait values and environmental variables using a CWM-RDA. We found both trait underdispersion and trait overdispersion, but underdispersion (eight traits) was more frequently detected than overdispersion (two traits). Underdispersion was related to four environmental variables (tree cover, habitat diversity, productivity of ground vegetation, and location on an esker ridge). Our results show clear evidence for underdispersion in traits driven by environmental filtering, but no clear evidence for dispersal filtering. We did not find evidence for overdispersion of traits due to diet or body size, but overdispersion in shell shape may indicate niche differentiation between snail species driven by small-scale habitat heterogeneity. The use of species traits enabled us to identify key traits involved in snail community assembly and to detect the simultaneous occurrence of trait underdispersion and overdispersion.
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| 4. |
- Brose, Ulrich, et al.
(author)
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Spatial aspects of food webs
- 2005
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In: Dynamic Food Webs. - London, UK : Elsevier. - 9780120884582 - 0120884585 ; , s. 463-469
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Aspects of spatial scale have until recently been largely ignored in empirical and theoretical food web studies (e.g., Cohen & Briand 1984, Martinez 1992, but see Bengtsson et al. 2002, Bengtsson & Berg, this book). Most ecologists tend to conceptualize and represent food webs as static representations of communities, depicting a community assemblage as sampled at a particular point in time, or highly aggregated trophic group composites over broader scales of time and space (Polis et al. 1996). Moreover, most researchers depict potential food webs, which contain all species sampled and all potential trophic links based on literature reviews, several sampling events, or laboratory feeding trials. In reality, however, not all these potential feeding links are realized as not all species co-occur, and not all samples in space or time can contain all species (Schoenly & Cohen 1991), hence, yielding a variance of food web architecture in space (Brose et al. 2004). In recent years, food web ecologists have recognized that food webs are open systems – that are influence by processes in adjacent systems – and spatially heterogeneous (Polis et al. 1996). This influence of adjacent systems can be bottom-up, due to allochthonous inputs of resources (Polis & Strong 1996, Huxel & McCann 1998, Mulder & De Zwart 2003), or top-down due to the regular or irregular presence of top predators (e.g., Post et al. 2000, Scheu 2001). However, without a clear understanding of the size of a system and a definition of its boundaries it is not possible to judge if flows are internal or driven by adjacent systems. Similarly, the importance of allochthony is only assessable when the balance of inputs and outputs are known relative to the scale and throughputs within the system itself. At the largest scale of the food web – the home range of a predator such as wolf, lion, shark or eagle of roughly 50 km2 to 300 km2 –the balance of inputs and outputs caused by wind and movement of water may be small compared to the total trophic flows within the home range of the large predator (Cousins 1990). Acknowledging these issues of space, Polis et al (1996) argued that progress toward the next phase of food web studies would require addressing spatial and temporal processes. Here, we present a conceptual framework with some nuclei about the role of space in food web ecology. Although we primarily address spatial aspects, this framework is linked to a more general concept of spatio-temporal scales of ecological research.
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| 5. |
- De Smedt, Pallieter, et al.
(author)
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Desiccation resistance determines distribution of woodlice along forest edge-to-interior gradients
- 2018
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In: European journal of soil biology. - : Elsevier BV. - 1164-5563 .- 1778-3615. ; 85, s. 1-3
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Forest edges show strong abiotic and biotic gradients potentially altering community composition and ecosystem processes such as nutrient cycling. While abiotic gradients are well studied, short-scale biotic gradients, like detritivore species composition and their associated trait distribution remains a poorly explored research-field. We sampled woodlice in 160 forest patches across Europe at varying distances from the forest edge and discovered that species desiccation resistance determines distribution along forest edge-to-interior gradients. Forest edges are warmer and dryer compared to interiors and favour drought-tolerant species, while abundance and activity of drought-sensitive species is reduced at the edge. Key ecological factors for litter-dwelling detritivores (i.e. humidity) act as environmental filter, because of species-specific differences in desiccation resistance. Future research should focus on quantifying the consequences of a changing detritivore community and their associated functional traits for nutrient cycling.
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| 6. |
- De Smedt, Pallieter, et al.
(author)
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Linking macrodetritivore distribution to desiccation resistance in small forest fragments embedded in agricultural landscapes in Europe
- 2018
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In: Landscape Ecology. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0921-2973 .- 1572-9761. ; 33:3, s. 407-421
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Most of the agricultural landscape in Europe, and elsewhere, consists of mosaics with scattered fragments of semi-natural habitat like small forest fragments. Mutual interactions between forest fragments and agricultural areas influence ecosystem processes such as nutrient cycling, a process strongly mediated by the macrodetritivore community, which is however, poorly studied. We investigated macrodetritivore distribution patterns at local and landscape-level and used a key functional trait (desiccation resistance) to gain mechanistic insights of the putative drivers.
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| 7. |
- Handa, I. Tanya, et al.
(author)
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Consequences of biodiversity loss for litter decomposition across biomes
- 2014
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In: Nature. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0028-0836 .- 1476-4687. ; 509:7499, s. 218-221
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The decomposition of dead organic matter is a major determinant of carbon and nutrient cycling in ecosystems, and of carbon fluxes between the biosphere and the atmosphere(1-3). Decomposition is driven by a vast diversity of organisms that are structured in complex food webs(2,4). Identifying the mechanisms underlying the effects of biodiversity on decomposition is critical(4-6) given the rapid loss of species worldwide and the effects of this loss on human well-being(7-9). Yet despite comprehensive syntheses of studies on how biodiversity affects litter decomposition(4-6,10), key questions remain, including when, where and how biodiversity has a role and whether general patterns and mechanisms occur across ecosystems and different functional types of organism(4,9-12). Here, in field experiments across five terrestrial and aquatic locations, ranging from the subarctic to the tropics, we show that reducing the functional diversity of decomposer organisms and plant litter types slowed the cycling of litter carbon and nitrogen. Moreover, we found evidence of nitrogen transfer from the litter of nitrogen-fixing plants to that of rapidly decomposing plants, but not between other plant functional types, highlighting that specific interactions in litter mixtures control carbon and nitrogen cycling during decomposition. The emergence of this general mechanism and the coherence of patterns across contrasting terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems suggest that biodiversity loss has consistent consequences for litter decomposition and the cycling of major elements on broad spatial scales.
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| 8. |
- Krab, Eveline J, et al.
(author)
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A simple experimental set-up to disentangle the effects of altered temperature and moisture regimes on soil organisms
- 2015
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In: Methods in Ecology and Evolution. - : Wiley-Blackwell. - 2041-210X. ; 6:10, s. 1159-1168
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Climate manipulation experiments in the field and laboratory incubations are common methods to study the impact of climate change on soils and their biota. However, both types of methods have drawbacks either on their mechanistic interpretation or ecological relevance. We propose an experimental set-up that combines the best of both methods and can be easily obtained by modifying widely available Tullgren soil fauna extractors. This set-up creates or alters temperature and moisture gradients within intact field soil cores, after which soil biota, their activity and vertical movements can be studied. We assessed the performance and demonstrated the applicability of this set-up through a case study on Collembola response to changes in microclimatic gradients in peat bogs. Warming created a vertical temperature gradient of 14 degrees C in peat cores without varying soil moisture conditions, while at a given temperature regime, precipitation and drought treatments shifted natural soil moisture gradients to 'wetter' and 'drier', respectively. This allowed for disentangling interacting warming and moisture effects on soil fauna. In our case study, Collembola communities showed peat layer-specific responses to these climate treatments. Warming decreased Collembola density and altered community composition in the shallowest layer, whereas precipitation increase affected Collembola community composition in the deepest layer. We showed that climate change can have layer-specific effects on soil organisms that are 'hidden' by not taking microclimatic vertical gradients into account. This experimental set-up facilitates studying (multitrophic) organism responses to climate changes, with only a small adjustment of equipment that is often already present in soil ecology laboratories. Moreover, this set-up can be easily customized to study many more other research questions related to wide-ranging organisms and ecosystems.
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| 9. |
- Krab, Eveline J., et al.
(author)
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Northern peatland Collembola communities unaffected by three summers of simulated extreme precipitation
- 2014
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In: Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment. Applied Soil Ecology. - : Elsevier BV. - 0929-1393 .- 1873-0272. ; 79, s. 70-76
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Extreme climate events are observed and predicted to increase in frequency and duration in high-latitudeecosystems as a result of global climate change. This includes extreme precipitation events, which maydirectly impact on belowground food webs and ecosystem functioning by their physical impacts and byaltering local soil moisture conditions.We assessed responses of the Collembola community in a northern Sphagnum fuscum-dominatedombrotrophic peatland to three years of experimentally increased occurrence of extreme precipitationevents. Annual summer precipitation was doubled (an increase of 200 mm) by 16 simulated extremerain events within the three months growing season, where on each occasion 12.5 mm of rain was addedwithin a few minutes. Despite this high frequency and intensity of the rain events, no shifts in Collemboladensity, relative species abundances and community weighted means of three relevant traits (moisturepreference, vertical distribution and body size) were observed. This strongly suggests that the peatlandCollembola community is unaffected by the physical impacts of extreme precipitation and the short-termvariability in moisture conditions. The lack of response is most likely reinforced by the fact that extremeprecipitation events do not seem to alter longer-term soil moisture conditions in the peat layers inhabitedby soil fauna.This study adds evidence to the observation that the biotic components of northern ombrotrophicpeatlands are hardly responsive to an increase in extreme summer precipitation events. Given the importance of these ecosystems for the global C balance, these findings significantly contribute to the currentknowledge of the ecological impact of future climate scenarios. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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| 10. |
- Vandewalle, Marie, et al.
(author)
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Functional traits as indicators of biodiversity response to land use changes across ecosystems and organisms
- 2010
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In: Biodiversity and Conservation. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0960-3115 .- 1572-9710. ; 19:10, s. 2921-2947
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Rigorous and widely applicable indicators of biodiversity are needed to monitor the responses of ecosystems to global change and design effective conservation schemes. Among the potential indicators of biodiversity, those based on the functional traits of species and communities are interesting because they can be generalized to similar habitats and can be assessed by relatively rapid field assessment across eco-regions. Functional traits, however, have as yet been rarely considered in current common monitoring schemes. Moreover, standardized procedures of trait measurement and analyses have almost exclusively been developed for plants but different approaches have been used for different groups of organisms. Here we review approaches using functional traits as biodiversity indicators focussing not on plants as usual but particularly on animal groups that are commonly considered in different biodiversity monitoring schemes (benthic invertebrates, collembolans, above ground insects and birds). Further, we introduce a new framework based on functional traits indices and illustrate it using case studies where the traits of these organisms can help monitoring the response of biodiversity to different land use change drivers. We propose and test standard procedures to integrate different components of functional traits into biodiversity monitoring schemes across trophic levels and disciplines. We suggest that the development of indicators using functional traits could complement, rather than replace, the existent biodiversity monitoring. In this way, the comparison of the effect of land use changes on biodiversity is facilitated and is expected to positively influence conservation management practices.
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| 11. |
- Zhou, Shixing, et al.
(author)
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Decomposition of leaf litter mixtures across biomes : The role of litter identity, diversity and soil fauna
- 2020
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In: Journal of Ecology. - : John Wiley & Sons. - 0022-0477 .- 1365-2745. ; 108:6, s. 2283-2297
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- At broad spatial scales, the factors regulating litter decomposition remain ambiguous, with the understanding of these factors largely based on studies investigating site-specific single litter species, whereas studies using multi litter species mixtures across sites are rare. We exposed in microcosms containing single species and all possible mixtures of four leaf litter species differing widely in initial chemical and physical characteristics from a temperate forest to the climatic conditions of four different forests across the Northern Hemisphere for 1 year. Calcium, magnesium and condensed tannins predicted litter mass loss of single litter species and mixtures across forest types and biomes, regardless of species richness and microarthropod presence. However, relative mixture effects differed among forest types and varied with the access to the litter by microarthropods. Access to the microcosms by microarthropods modified the decomposition of individual litter species within mixtures, which differed among forest types independent of litter species richness and composition of litter mixtures. However, soil microarthropods generally only little affected litter decomposition. Synthesis. We conclude that litter identity is the dominant driver of decomposition across different forest types and the non-additive litter mixture effects vary among biomes despite identical leaf litter chemistry. These results suggest that across large spatial scales the environmental context of decomposing litter mixtures, including microarthropod communities, determine the decomposition of litter mixtures besides strong litter trait-based effects.
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