Collembolan reproduction in soils from a long-term fertilisation experiment opposes the Growth Rate Hypothesis

Steiner, Natalie; Merbach, Ines; Schädler, Martin; Filser, Juliane

doi:10.1016/j.ejsobi.2015.03.007

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…Stratiolaelaps scimitus (Acari: Laelapidae) was selected as predatory Acari. S. scimitus is an ubiquitous species (Karg, 1998) known as predator of Collembola (Koehler, 1999;Schröder et al, 2015;Thakur et al, 2017). Individuals were reared in plastic boxes (5.5 cm diameter × 7 cm height) containing a flat mixture of plaster of Paris and activated charcoal in 9:1 ratio, permanently water saturated.…”

Section: Mesofauna Collectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Folsomia candida was selected as prey species. This is a parthenogenetic and ubiquitous Collembola known as fungivorous and frequently used in laboratory experiment (Fountain and Hopkin, 2005;Staaden et al, 2011;Schröder et al, 2015;Thakur et al, 2017). Individuals were reared in plastic boxes (5.5 cm diameter × 7 cm height) containing a flat mixture of plaster of Paris and activated charcoal in a ratio 9:1, permanently water saturated.…”

Section: Mesofauna Collectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Tree litter identity and predator density control prey and predator demographic parameters in a Mediterranean litter-based multi-trophic system

et al. 2019

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Plant litter decomposition is an essential process of ecosystem functioning, driven by a complex soil food web. The identity and density of the predators, as well as the quality and quantity of litter, could conjointly affect the strength of trophic interactions within a soil food web. Pine and oak are dominant tree species in temperate and Mediterranean forests and, although they exhibit distinct litter characteristics, no previous study attempted to decipher how these two litters can affect a litter-based multi-trophic system with varying predator density. Using a microcosm experiment, we aimed at understanding how different densities of a predatory Acari (Stratiolaelaps scimitus) and two Mediterranean litter species (Quercus pubescens and Pinus halepensis) may impact the demographic parameters of the predatory Acari, its Collembola prey (Folsomia candida) and the fungal biomass associated with litter. We did not observe any interactive effect of litter identity and predator density on both predator and prey demographic parameters. Survival and fecundity rates of the predator and its prey decreased at high predator density. However, demographic parameters of the predator and its prey were differentially affected by litter identity, with greater prey demographic parameters in Quercus litter and, in the opposite, greater predator demographic parameters in Pinus litter, probably due to differences in physical characteristics providing more or less refuge for the prey. We also observed a higher increase in fungal biomass in Pinus compared to Quercus litter, i.e. the litter with the fungivorous Collembola abundance reduced by the predatory Acari. Litter identity could thus strongly regulate these tri-trophic interactions (Fungifungivorous Collembolapredatory Acari) in forest ecosystems. Finally, the implications of our findings could be important as the distribution area of oak and pine forests may be altered in response to climate change with then potentially strong cascading effects on soil organisms and the processes they drive.

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Section: Mesofauna Collectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Mesofauna Collectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tree litter identity and predator density control prey and predator demographic parameters in a Mediterranean litter-based multi-trophic system

et al. 2019

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“…This conclusion is based on two important assumptions: (a) the organism biomass is indexed in carbon so that reductions in production efficiency require increases in foraging rate instead of changes in body C content and (b) the costs of reduced production efficiency outweigh any undefined costs associated with finding, attacking and eating the prey item with a lower C:N ratio. We are unaware of strong evidence that individual soil organisms can rapidly vary their body C content, which would dispute the first assumption (Holtkamp et al., 2011; Schröder et al., 2015; Sterner & Elser, 2002). The second assumption is more problematic and requires information on organism foraging preferences.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stoichiometric and structural uncertainty in soil food web models

Buchkowski

Lindo

2020

Functional Ecology

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1. Soil food web models are a powerful tool for calculating the carbon and nitrogen mineralized by different soil organisms. Two limitations of the current models are that they use (a) fixed parameters for determining the relative efficiency of carbon and nitrogen conversion and (b) a generic set of trophic species (i.e. nodes). 2. We propose a new method for analysing soil food webs that varies production efficiency and diet mechanistically with resource stoichiometry. Then, we calculated how the lumping or splitting of trophic species affects carbon and nitrogen mineralization for both net mineralization rates as well as the distribution of mineralization (i.e. sources of mineralization). Our models with additional stoichiometric details better represent organisms that consume basal resources with high C:N ratios. 3. This is important because we show that lumping together trophic species at low trophic levels, which often differ in C:N ratios (i.e. microbial taxa), causes the largest deviations in estimates of carbon and nitrogen mineralization. One reason for the large effect of C:N ratio is that it impacts diet and production efficiency in our stoichiometric model. Conversely, lumping together species at higher trophic levels causes the largest errors when those species have different production and assimilation efficiencies. Finally, we demonstrate that differences in death rate and biomass are mostly important when lumping species that have different diets. 4. We suggest that C:N ratios are especially important when grouping microbial taxa because microbial C:N ratios vary widely and microbes feed at low trophic levels where differences in C:N ratio mattered the most. Conversely lumping higher consumers will be most problematic when they have differences in the conversion efficiencies. We provide an approach to calculate structural error and report it with parameter uncertainty. Then, we demonstrate, using oribatid mites as an example, that considering the life history of different taxa can help us group organisms more efficiently into trophic species. In doing so, we provide a way to reduce and report the uncertainty in soil food web models and to stimulate future empirical work measuring key life history parameters.

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Phosphorus addition increases the total abundance and favors microbivorous Collembola in subalpine plantation forest

Zhang

Scheu

Bhusal

et al. 2023

Applied Soil Ecology

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Collembolan reproduction in soils from a long-term fertilisation experiment opposes the Growth Rate Hypothesis

Cited by 4 publications

References 27 publications

Tree litter identity and predator density control prey and predator demographic parameters in a Mediterranean litter-based multi-trophic system

Tree litter identity and predator density control prey and predator demographic parameters in a Mediterranean litter-based multi-trophic system

Stoichiometric and structural uncertainty in soil food web models

Phosphorus addition increases the total abundance and favors microbivorous Collembola in subalpine plantation forest

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