Seasonal and temporal patterns of rainfall shape arthropod community composition and multi-trophic interactions in an arid environment

Abstract

In arid and semi-arid ecosystems, rainfall and rainfall temporal distribution shape species communities and multi-trophic interactions. Whereas the relationship between climate change-induced decline of precipitation and plants is well know, there is little knowledge of these relationships with consumers, such as arthropods of different trophic levels. In a 6-year period we studied precipitation effects and microhabitat conditions on multi-trophic interactions of ground-dwelling arthropods in an arid savannah. We analysed the effects of seasonal rainfall, plant cover and soil texture on community composition and activity density of arthropods of different trophic levels and investigated the critical window of vegetation and occurrence arthropods in relation to rainfall. Our result show, that arthropod community composition was determined by seasonal rainfall and plant cover. Soil texture did not explain arthropod response sufficiently. Especially detritivorous arthropods were strongly affected by precipitation and can therefore serve as indicators of droughts. Further, multi-trophic interactions can better be explained by short-term rainfall pulses, rather than by seasonal patterns, with a window of seven days being most suitable to explain the influence of rainfall. Plant cover responded immediately after the rainfall, followed by herbivorous and predatory arthropods, and with a lag of 23 days omnivorous arthropods. This highlights the importance of short-term rain pulses for multi-trophic interactions among arthropods and emphasized the relevance of studying detailed precipitation effects for the arthropod diversity and ecosystem stability in arid ecosystems.

Metabarcoding reveals seasonal and spatial patterns of arthropod community assemblages in two contrasting habitats: Desert and oasis of the Baja California Peninsula, Mexico

“…Nevertheless, due to the climatic dynamics in oases, we do think that our sampling is representative. On the other hand, seasonal dynamics in deserts may be more complex, and therefore, more sampling dates would probably be needed to fully capture arthropods' seasonal dynamics in this habitat (Fischer et al, 2022).…”

Latitudinal and anthropogenic effects on the structuring of networks linking blood‐feeding flies and their vertebrate hosts

“…Consequently, the absence of clear latitudinal trends in network structure, as also documented for host–parasitoid networks (Morris et al, 2014 ), could result from underlying rules for how these antagonistic interactions are structured, regardless of the diversity and size of component networks, or their taxonomic composition. However, the apparent lack of a latitudinal trend may also result from local climatic differences (e.g., rainfall) among sites at similar latitudes masking latitudinal effects (Fischer et al, 2022 ; Zhu et al, 2014 ).…”

The Short-Term Responses of Forest Soil Invertebrate Communities to Typhoon Disturbances

“…Next, the proportion of fungivores will increase in the middle stage of abnormal litter decomposition, while the proportion of saprophages will increase in the later stage of decomposition. Last, omnivores may require a longer recovery cycle [62], and their increase will drive the increase in predators.…”