Termite mounds house a diversity of taxa in oil palm plantations irrespective of understory management

Hood, Amelia S. C.; Pashkevich, Michael D.; Dahlsjö, Cecilia A. L.; Advento, Andreas Dwi; Aryawan, Anak Agung Ketut; Caliman, Jean‐Pierre; Naim, Mohammad; Head, Jason J.; Turner, Edgar C.

doi:10.1111/btp.12754

Cited by 7 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 46 publications

(62 reference statements)

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“…With such effective digestion, termites emit significant amounts of methane and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere (Sanderson, 1996). Some termite species build soil nests and protective structures, thereby substantially contributing to soil bioturbation and by nest space provisioning to soil biodiversity (Visser, Freymann & Schnyder, 2008; Hood et al ., 2020).…”

Section: Synopsis Of Feeding Habitsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A range of lizards, birds and invertebrates also attack termites (Deligne et al, 1981;Pianka, 1986). However, the most important termite predators are ants (Hölldobler & Wilson, 1990). There are both generalist termite-preying ants such as Pheidole spp., and highly specialised species able to disrupt termite colonies such as Neoponera spp.…”

Section: (D) Chilopodamentioning

confidence: 99%

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Feeding habits and multifunctional classification of soil‐associated consumers from protists to vertebrates

et al. 2022

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Soil organisms drive major ecosystem functions by mineralising carbon and releasing nutrients during decomposition processes, which supports plant growth, aboveground biodiversity and, ultimately, human nutrition. Soil ecologists often operate with functional groups to infer the effects of individual taxa on ecosystem functions and services. Simultaneous assessment of the functional roles of multiple taxa is possible using food‐web reconstructions, but our knowledge of the feeding habits of many taxa is insufficient and often based on limited evidence. Over the last two decades, molecular, biochemical and isotopic tools have improved our understanding of the feeding habits of various soil organisms, yet this knowledge is still to be synthesised into a common functional framework. Here, we provide a comprehensive review of the feeding habits of consumers in soil, including protists, micro‐, meso‐ and macrofauna (invertebrates), and soil‐associated vertebrates. We have integrated existing functional group classifications with findings gained with novel methods and compiled an overarching classification across taxa focusing on key universal traits such as food resource preferences, body masses, microhabitat specialisation, protection and hunting mechanisms. Our summary highlights various strands of evidence that many functional groups commonly used in soil ecology and food‐web models are feeding on multiple types of food resources. In many cases, omnivory is observed down to the species level of taxonomic resolution, challenging realism of traditional soil food‐web models based on distinct resource‐based energy channels. Novel methods, such as stable isotope, fatty acid and DNA gut content analyses, have revealed previously hidden facets of trophic relationships of soil consumers, such as food assimilation, multichannel feeding across trophic levels, hidden trophic niche differentiation and the importance of alternative food/prey, as well as energy transfers across ecosystem compartments. Wider adoption of such tools and the development of open interoperable platforms that assemble morphological, ecological and trophic data as traits of soil taxa will enable the refinement and expansion of the multifunctional classification of consumers in soil. The compiled multifunctional classification of soil‐associated consumers will serve as a reference for ecologists working with biodiversity changes and biodiversity–ecosystem functioning relationships, making soil food‐web research more accessible and reproducible.

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Section: Synopsis Of Feeding Habitsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: (D) Chilopodamentioning

confidence: 99%

Feeding habits and multifunctional classification of soil‐associated consumers from protists to vertebrates

et al. 2022

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“…Previous studies have shown that maintaining heterogeneity in oil palm landscapes can improve the biodiversity and structural complexity of plants (Luke et al, 2019a), and the abundance or biodiversity of a wide range of invertebrate and vertebrate taxa, including birds (Teuscher et al, 2016;Yahya et al, 2017), bats (Syafiq et al, 2016), soil invertebrates (Ashton-Butt et al, 2018), and leopard cats (Hood et al, 2019). Additionally, as arthropods influence existing trophic networks in oil palm systems (Barnes et al, 2014), and otherwise interact ecologically with non-arthropod groups (for instance, termite mounds are valuable nesting sites for snakes in oil palm plantations; Hood et al, 2020b), differences in arthropod biodiversity between buffer and non-buffer areas could affect the biodiversity of non-arthropod biota. Future studies are needed to determine the impacts of mature palm buffers on non-arthropod taxonomic groups, and potential knock-on effects on ecosystem functioning.…”

Section: Differences Between Mature Palm Buffers and Surrounding Habi...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Riparian buffers made of mature oil palms have inconsistent impacts on oil palm ecosystems

Pashkevich

Luke

Aryawan

et al. 2022

Ecological Applications

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Expansion of oil palm has caused widespread declines in biodiversity and changes in ecosystem functioning across the tropics. A major driver of these changes is loss of habitat heterogeneity as forests are converted into oil palm plantations. Therefore, one strategy to help support biodiversity and functioning in oil palm is to increase habitat heterogeneity, for instance, by retaining forested buffers around rivers when new plantations are established, or maintaining buffers made of mature oil palms (“mature palm buffers”) when old plantations are replanted. While forested buffers are known to benefit oil palm systems, the impacts of mature palm buffers are less certain. In this study, we assessed the benefits of mature palm buffers, which were being passively restored (in this case, meaning that buffers were treated with no herbicides, pesticides, or fertilizers) by sampling environmental conditions and arthropods within buffers and in surrounding non‐buffer areas (i.e., areas that were 25 and 125 m from buffers, and receiving normal business‐as‐usual management) across an 8‐year chronosequence in industrial oil palm plantations (Sumatra, Indonesia). We ask (1) Do environmental conditions and biodiversity differ between buffer and non‐buffer areas? (2) Do buffers affect environmental conditions and biodiversity in adjacent non‐buffer areas (i.e., areas that were 25 m from buffers)? (3) Do buffers become more environmentally complex and biodiverse over time? We found that buffers can have environmental conditions (canopy openness, variation in openness, vegetation height, ground cover, and soil temperature) and levels of arthropod biodiversity (total arthropod abundance and spider abundance in the understory and spider species‐level community composition in all microhabitats) that are different from those in non‐buffer areas, but that these differences are inconsistent across the oil palm commercial life cycle. We also found that buffers might contribute to small increases in vegetation height and changes in ground cover in adjacent non‐buffer areas, but do not increase levels of arthropod biodiversity in these areas. Finally, we found that canopy openness, variation in openness, and ground cover, but no aspects of arthropod biodiversity, change within buffers over time. Collectively, our findings indicate that mature palm buffers that are being passively restored can have greater environmental complexity and higher levels of arthropod biodiversity than non‐buffer areas, particularly in comparison to recently replanted oil palm, but these benefits are not consistent across the crop commercial life cycle. If the goal of maintaining riparian buffers is to consistently increase habitat heterogeneity and improve biodiversity, an alternative to mature palm buffers or a move toward more active restoration of these areas is, therefore, probably required.

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The impacts of tropical mound-building social insects on soil properties vary between taxa and with anthropogenic habitat change

Tůma

Frouz²,

Veselá³

et al. 2022

Applied Soil Ecology

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Termite mounds house a diversity of taxa in oil palm plantations irrespective of understory management

Cited by 7 publications

References 46 publications

Feeding habits and multifunctional classification of soil‐associated consumers from protists to vertebrates

Feeding habits and multifunctional classification of soil‐associated consumers from protists to vertebrates

Riparian buffers made of mature oil palms have inconsistent impacts on oil palm ecosystems

The impacts of tropical mound-building social insects on soil properties vary between taxa and with anthropogenic habitat change

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