Impact of three co-occurring physical ecosystem engineers on soil Collembola communities

D. D.G. Lagendijk*, D. Cueva-Arias, A. R. Van Oosten, M. P. Berg

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

    Abstract

    The interplay between organisms with their abiotic environment may have profound effects within ecological networks, but are still poorly understood. Soil physical ecosystem engineers (EEs) modify the abiotic environment, thereby potentially affecting the distribution of other species, such as microarthropods. We focus on three co-occurring physical EEs (i.e. cattle, vegetation, macrodetritivore) known for their profound effect on soil properties (e.g. pore volume, microclimate, litter thickness). We determined their effects on Collembola community composition and life-form strategy (a proxy for vertical distribution in soil) in a European salt marsh. Soil cores were collected in grazed (compacted soil, under short and tall vegetation) and non-grazed areas (decompacted soil, under short and tall vegetation), their pore structure analysed using X-ray computed tomography, after which Collembola were extracted. Collembola species richness was lower in grazed sites, but abundances were not affected by soil compaction or vegetation height. Community composition differed between ungrazed sites with short vegetation and the other treatments, due to a greater dominance of epigeic Collembola and lower abundance of euedaphic species in this treatment. We found that the three co-occurring EEs and their interactions modify the physical environment of soil fauna, particularly through changes in soil porosity and availability of litter. This alters the relative abundance of Collembola life-forms, and thus the community composition within the soil. As Collembola are known to play a crucial role in decomposition processes, these compositional changes in litter and soil layers are expected to affect ecosystem processes and functioning.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)1085-1096
    Number of pages12
    JournalOecologia
    Volume198
    Issue number4
    Early online date7 Apr 2022
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Apr 2022

    Bibliographical note

    Funding Information:
    We would like to thank Natuurmonumenten for permission to conduct this research on the field sites. We would like to thank Remco Hamoen for facilitating, and assisting with the use of the XRT scanner at the Shared Research Facilities of Wageningen University & Research (subsidised by the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and the province of Gelderland, The Netherlands). DDGL and ARVO were funded by the Dutch Research Council (NWO 2021/ALW/01033009) and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

    Funding Information:
    We would like to thank Natuurmonumenten for permission to conduct this research on the field sites. We would like to thank Remco Hamoen for facilitating, and assisting with the use of the XRT scanner at the Shared Research Facilities of Wageningen University & Research (subsidised by the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and the province of Gelderland, The Netherlands). DDGL and ARVO were funded by the Dutch Research Council (NWO 2021/ALW/01033009) and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

    Funding Information:
    DDGL and ARVO were funded by the Dutch Research Council (NWO 2021/ALW/01033009) and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

    Publisher Copyright:
    © 2022, The Author(s).

    Keywords

    • Bioturbation
    • Grazing
    • Non-trophic interactions
    • Soil fauna
    • Vegetation structure

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