Factors influencing carrion communities are only partially consistent with those of deadwood necromass

Hoermann, Christian von; Benbow, M. Eric; Rottler-Hoermann, Ann-Marie; Lackner, Tomáš; Sommer, David; Receveur, Joseph P.; Bässler, Claus; Heurich, Marco; Müller, Jörg

doi:10.1007/s00442-023-05327-8

Cited by 5 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 87 publications

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“…Huge numbers of microbes, insects and vertebrates colonize or make use of a carrion (von Hoermann et al., 2023). Here, beetle community composition was predictive of the decay process, supporting previous work showing that beetle community composition, affected by the mean annual temperature, significantly affected mice carrion decomposition (Farwig et al., 2014).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Season, decay stage, habitat, temperature and carrion beetles allow estimating the post‐mortem interval of wild boar carcasses

Müller,

Rietz,

von Hoermann

et al. 2024

Ecol Sol and Evidence

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The decay process of animal carcasses is a highly complex succession driven by abiotic and biotic variables and their interactions. As an underexplored ecological recycling process, understanding carrion decomposition associated with pandemics such as African swine fever is important for predicting the rate and post‐mortem interval (PMI) variation of wild animal carcasses to improve disease management. To model PMIs of wild boar, we deployed 73 wild boar carcasses in four different forest habitat types throughout a year and monitored the decomposition process, carrion beetles and blow fly larval populations. The 601 single observations were split randomly into 501 training data and 100 validation data. A linear additive mixed model for log‐transformed PMI values using the training data identified the decay stage, day of year, ambient temperature during sampling, habitat and prevalence of Oiceoptoma thoracicum (Silphidae) as predictive variables for time since death, but neither the initial body mass nor if a fresh or previous frozen carcass was used. Using the validation data, this model showed a high predictive power for log‐transformed PMI values (R2 = 0.80). This study aimed at improving the methodology of estimating the PMI of wild boar carcasses based on important abiotic and biotic environmental factors that can be easily assessed in the field. Using only a small set of predictors, including a conspicuous beetle species, allowed prediction of the mean, minimum and maximum PMI of wild boar carcasses. The strong effects of a few surrogates on PMI in our model suggest that this model can easily be transferred to wider regions of Central Europe by retraining the model with data from a broader environmental space and can thus be instrumental in assessing timing of disease introduction in areas newly affected by emerging diseases such as African swine fever.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Season, decay stage, habitat, temperature and carrion beetles allow estimating the post‐mortem interval of wild boar carcasses

Müller,

Rietz,

von Hoermann

et al. 2024

Ecol Sol and Evidence

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Ecological drivers of carrion beetle (Staphylinidae: Silphinae) diversity on small to large mammals

Büchner,

Hothorn,

Feldhaar

et al. 2024

Ecology and Evolution

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Silphinae (Staphylinidae; carrion beetles) are important contributors to the efficient decomposition and recycling of carrion necromass. Their community composition is important for the provision of this ecosystem function and can be affected by abiotic and biotic factors. However, investigations are lacking on the effects of carrion characteristics on Silphinae diversity. Carrion body mass may affect Silphinae diversity following the more individuals hypothesis (MIH). The MIH predicts a higher number of species at larger carrion because higher numbers of individuals can be supported on the resource patch. Additionally, biotic factors like carrion species identity or decomposition stage, and the abiotic factors elevation, season and temperature could affect Silphinae diversity. To test the hypotheses, we collected Silphinae throughout the decomposition of 100 carcasses representing 10 mammal species ranging from 0.04 to 124 kg. Experimental carcasses were exposed in a mountain forest landscape in Germany during spring and summer of 2021. We analysed Silphinae diversity using recently developed transformation models that considered the difficult data distribution we obtained. We found no consistent effect of carrion body mass on Silphinae species richness and, therefore, rejected the MIH. Carrion decomposition stage, in contrast, strongly influenced Silphinae diversity. Abundance and species richness increased with the decomposition process. Silphinae abundance increased with temperature and decreased with elevation. Furthermore, Silphinae abundance was lower in summer compared to spring, likely due to increased co‐occurrence and competition with dipteran larvae in summer. Neither carrion species identity nor any abiotic factor affected Silphinae species richness following a pattern consistent throughout the seasons. Our approach combining a broad study design with an improved method for data analysis, transformation models, revealed new insights into mechanisms driving carrion beetle diversity during carrion decomposition. Overall, our study illustrates the complexity and multifactorial nature of biotic and abiotic factors affecting diversity.

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Mechanisms determining the multi-diversity of carrion visiting species along a gradient of carrion body mass

Wierer,

von Hoermann,

Benbow

et al. 2024

Oecologia

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Resource availability and habitat heterogeneity are essential drivers of biodiversity, but their individual roles often remain unclear since both factors are often correlated. Here, we tested the more-individuals hypothesis (MIH) and the habitat-heterogeneity hypothesis (HHH) for bacteria, fungi, dipterans, coleopterans, birds, and mammals on 100 experimentally exposed carcasses ranging by three orders of magnitude in body mass. At the level of each carcass we found marginal or significant support for the MIH for bacteria, fungi, and beetles in spring and significant support for fungi, dipterans, and mammals in summer. The HHH was supported only for bacteria in spring, while it was supported for all groups except mammals in summer. Overall multidiversity always increased with body mass, with a steeper increase in summer. Abundance based rarefaction-extrapolation curves for three classes of body mass showed the highest species richness for medium-sized carcasses, particular for dipterans and microbes, supporting the HHH also among carcasses. These findings complement existing necromass studies of deadwood, showing there are more niches associated with larger resource amounts and an increasing habitat heterogeneity between carcasses most pronounced for medium-sized species. Higher resource amount led to increased diversity of carrion-consuming organisms in summer, particularly due to the increasing number of niches with increasing size. Our findings underline the importance of distributed large carrion as well as medium-sized carrion in ecosystems supporting overall biodiversity of carrion-consumers. Furthermore, the different responses in spring and summer may inform strategies of carrion enrichment management schemes throughout the year.

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Factors influencing carrion communities are only partially consistent with those of deadwood necromass

Cited by 5 publications

References 87 publications

Season, decay stage, habitat, temperature and carrion beetles allow estimating the post‐mortem interval of wild boar carcasses

Season, decay stage, habitat, temperature and carrion beetles allow estimating the post‐mortem interval of wild boar carcasses

Ecological drivers of carrion beetle (Staphylinidae: Silphinae) diversity on small to large mammals

Mechanisms determining the multi-diversity of carrion visiting species along a gradient of carrion body mass

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