Effects of single and repeated drought on soil microarthropods in a semi-arid ecosystem depend more on timing and duration than drought severity

Abstract

Soil moisture is one of the most important factors affecting soil biota. In arid and semi-arid ecosystems, soil mesofauna is adapted to temporary drought events, but, until now, we have had a limited understanding of the impacts of the different magnitudes and frequencies of drought predicted to occur according to future climate change scenarios. The present study focuses on how springtails and mites respond to simulated repeated drought events of different magnitudes in a field experiment in a Hungarian semi-arid sand steppe. Changes in soil arthropod activities were monitored with soil trapping over two years in a sandy soil. In the first year (2014), we applied an extreme drought pretreatment, and in the consecutive year, we applied less devastating treatments (severe drought, moderate drought, water addition) to these sites. In the first year, the extreme drought pretreatment tended to have a negative effect (either significantly or not significantly) on the capture of all Collembola groups, whereas all mite groups increased in activity density. However, in the consecutive year, between the extreme drought and control treatments, we only detected differences in soil microbial biomass. In the cases of severe drought, moderate drought and water addition, we did not find considerable changes across the microarthropods, except in the case of epedaphic Collembola. In the cases of the water addition and drought treatments, the duration and timing of the manipulation seemed to be more important for soil mesofauna than their severity (i.e., the level of soil moisture decrease). We suggest that in these extreme habitats, soil mesofauna are able to survive extreme conditions, and their populations recover rapidly, but they may not be able to cope with very long drought periods.

Collembolan Assemblages Response to Wild Boars (Sus scrofa L.) Rooting in Pine Forest Soil

“…Moreover, the life form structure of the assemblages was also significantly altered since more atmobiotic and hemiedaphic springtails at the expense of epedaphic species were recorded in the plots rooted by wild boars. These findings correspond to the effect of drought manifesting in changes in the dominance structure of Collembola communities revealed by Lindberg et al [57], while a decrease in epedaphic life forms in experiments with induced drought was reported by Flórián et al [60].…”

“…Soil moisture has often been reported to be the most important factor affecting the structure and function of soil fauna [5,6,[55][56][57][58]. Edaphic Collembola in pine forests on podzols seem to be adapted to temporary drought events and able to survive even extreme conditions; however, they may not be able to cope with very long drought periods [57,59,60]. In most field experiments, extreme drought treatments induced a negative change in the abundance and density of soil Collembola (e.g., [5,57,58]).…”

Collembolan Assemblages Response to Wild Boars (Sus Scrofa L.) Rooting in Pine Forest Soil

“…Moreover, the life-form structure of the assemblages was also signi cantly altered since more atmobiotic and hemiedaphic springtails at the expense of epedaphic species were recorded in the plots rooted by wild boars. These ndings correspond to the effect of drought manifesting in changes in the dominance structure of Collembola communities revealed by Lindberg et al, (2002), while a decrease in epedaphic life forms in experiments with induced drought was reported by (Flórián et al 2019).…”

“…Soil moisture has often been reported to be the most important factor affecting the structure and function of soil fauna (Verhoef and van Selm, 1983;P ug and Wolters, 2001;Lindberg et al, 2002;Tsiafouli et al, 2005;Petersen, 2011;Xu et al, 2012). Edaphic Collembola in pine forests on Podzols seem to be adapted to temporary drought events and able to survive even extreme conditions; however, they may not be able to cope with very long drought periods (Lindberg et al, 2002;Lindberg and Bengtsson, 2006;Flórián et al, 2019). In most eld experiments, extreme drought treatments induced a negative change in the abundance and density of soil Collembola (e.g.…”

Detecting Soil Microarthropods with a Camera-Supported Trap

“…Sensor data were biased, especially in arid, sandy soil where sand particles could fall into the probe. Since fall-in events between insects and soil sand particles could not be distinguished, the frequency of detection was higher than the specimens captured [27]. The new camera-supported probe presented in this paper combines pitfall and camera-traps.…”