Tropical land use alters functional diversity of soil food webs and leads to monopolization of the detrital energy channel

Zhou, Zheng; Krashevska, Valentyna; Widyastuti, Rahayu; Scheu, Stefan; Potapov, Anton

doi:10.1101/2022.02.08.479508

Cited by 6 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 108 publications

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“…Strong shifts in plant communities, changes in soil microbial biomass and community composition, and depletion of litter resources associated with changes in tropical land use (Krashevska et al 2015;Rembold et al 2017) suggest that the availability of resources for soil animal communities is also changing. This is supported by recent studies indicating that the basis of soil animal food webs shifts towards the living plant energy channel in plantations (Susanti et al 2019;Krause et al 2021;Zhou et al 2022), but the role of roots in this context remains unclear.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 70%

“…The vertical distribution was represented by scaled values between 0 (the group only in litter) and 1 (the group only at 5-10 cm depth), accounting for the abundance in each layer. For the average body mass of taxonomic groups and trophic niche (δ 13 C and δ 15 N values), we used our previous data from the same study sites (Potapovet al 2019c;Zhou et al 2022). Stable isotope values of animals were calibrated to the respective values of litter in the respective plot.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Plant roots fuel tropical soil animal communities

Zhou

Preiser

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Belowground life is traditionally considered to rely on leaf litter as the main basal resource, whereas the importance of roots remains little understood, especially in the tropics. Here, we analysed the response of 30 soil animal groups to root trenching and litter removal in rainforest and plantations in Sumatra and found that roots are similarly important to soil fauna as litter. Trenching effects were stronger in soil than in litter with animal abundance being overall decreased by 42% in rainforest and by 30% in plantations. Litter removal little affected animals in soil, but decreased the total abundance by 60% both in rainforest and rubber plantations but not in oil palm plantations. Litter and root effects were explained either by the body size or vertical distribution of specific animal groups. Our findings highlight the importance of root-derived resources for soil animals and quantify principle carbon pathways in tropical soil food webs.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 70%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Plant roots fuel tropical soil animal communities

Zhou

Preiser

et al. 2022

Preprint

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“…The copyright holder for this preprint (which this version posted July 2, 2022. ; https://doi.org/10. 1101 the balance between energy channels and increased top-down control have the potential to destabilize community dynamics (Johnson et al 2014, Jacquet et al 2016, Wolkovich 2016, Brose et al 2017b, Zhou et al 2022). However, this could be offset by the generally stabilizing effect of large species on food-web dynamics (Brose et al 2006, 2017b, Heckmann et al 2012.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Increasing densities of large predators with their high per capita feeding rate can be indicative of increasing feeding rates (Rall et al 2012) (Schneider et al 2012), which yields higher interaction strength and energy fluxes through the food webs. Both a shift in the balance between energy channels and increased top-down control have the potential to destabilize community dynamics (Johnson et al 2014, Jacquet et al 2016, Wolkovich 2016, Brose et al 2017b, Zhou et al 2022). However, this could be offset by the generally stabilizing effect of large species on food-web dynamics (Brose et al 2006, 2017b, Heckmann et al 2012).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Global environmental drivers of local abundance-mass scaling in soil animal communities

Antunes

Gauzens

Brose

et al. 2022

Preprint

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The relationship between species body masses and densities is strongly conserved around a three-quarter power law when pooling data across communities. However, studies of local within-community relationships have revealed major deviations from this general pattern, which has profound implications for their stability and functioning. Despite multiple contributions of soil communities to people, there is limited knowledge on the drivers of body mass-abundance relationship in these communities. We compiled a dataset comprising 155 soil-animal communities across four countries (Canada, Germany, Indonesia, USA), all sampled using the same methodology. We tested if variation in local climatic and edaphic conditions drives differences in local body mass-abundance scaling relationships. We found substantial variation in the slopes of this power-law relationship across local communities. Structural equation modeling showed that soil temperature and water content have a positive and negative net effect, respectively, on soil communities. These effects are mediated by changes in local edaphic conditions (soil pH and carbon content) and the body-mass range of the communities. These results highlight ways in which alterations of soil climatic and edaphic conditions interactively impact the distribution of abundance, and thus energy, between populations of small and large animals. These quantitative mechanistic relationships facilitate our understanding of how global changes in environmental conditions, such as temperature and precipitation, will affect community-abundance distributions and thus the stability and functioning of soil-animal communities.

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“…primary consumers/decomposers, secondary consumers/decomposers and predators (Schneider et al 2004;Maguire et al 2016;Lagerlöf et al 2017). While several studies documented that environmental changes shape the composition of arthropod assemblages as well as their trophic position (Geldenhuys et al 2022;Zhou et al 2022), the role of urbanization processes in shaping the composition of arthropod communities received little attention.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Urbanization and urban habitat fragmentation do not compromise soil food web complexity and conservation value

Wang

Zhang

Qiao

et al. 2023

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Urbanization-induced environmental changes such as habitat fragmentation impacts arthropod assemblages and food web-related ecosystem functions, such as nutrient cycling, carbon storage and energy fluxes. Yet, we lack insight into how arthropod food webs are structured along urban fragmentation gradients. Here, we investigated the community composition and food web structure of litter-dwelling arthropods along fragmentation gradients (green median strip, urban park, urban forest and natural forest). We found the density of litter-dwelling arthropods in median strip and urban park to be two to four times higher than in urban and natural forests, with, as indicated by literature-based stable isotope values, 67% - 68% of the individuals comprising primary consumers (trophic level I) in median strip and urban park. Urban forests, reserved for biodiversity conservation, hosted the least arthropod density, taxa richness, biomass and body mass, but were colonized by a high number of specialist arthropods, e.g. Archaeognatha and Isoptera. Food webs were most simple in urban forest, but more complex in median strip and urban parks, i.e. open fragments, with abundant primary and secondary consumers including decomposers. Chilopoda and Araneae formed the apex predators in fragments and mostly consumed other predators of trophic level III. The biomass of decomposed litter on the soil surface as major resource of the soil animal community significantly correlated positively with the density of arthropods of trophic levels I, III and IV. Supporting the dominance of bottom-up forces, the density of adjacent trophic levels consistently correlated positively. Overall, our results suggest that small size urban fragments maintain a diverse community of arthropods forming complex food webs and thereby may contribute to conserving biodiversity and providing important ecosystem functions.

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Tropical land use alters functional diversity of soil food webs and leads to monopolization of the detrital energy channel

Cited by 6 publications

References 108 publications

Plant roots fuel tropical soil animal communities

Plant roots fuel tropical soil animal communities

Global environmental drivers of local abundance-mass scaling in soil animal communities

Urbanization and urban habitat fragmentation do not compromise soil food web complexity and conservation value

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