Warming in Cold Seasons Increases the Abundance of Ground-Dwelling Collembola in Permafrost Wetlands

Abstract

The consideration of environmental factors has long been crucial to developing theories about the spatial variability of species diversity. However, the effects of global warming on Collembola, in permafrost wetlands, are largely unknown. Understanding how Collembola are affected by climate warming is important as they directly affect the community assembly and decomposition processes of plant litter within soil ecosystems. A peatland area in a cold temperate monsoon climate zone in the Great Hing’an Mountains of Northeast China was selected as the study area. Collembola were captured using an aspirator after five years of simulated warming using open top chambers (OTCs). Sampling in different growth seasons showed different characteristics in the control (CK) and warming (OTCs) treatment. Further, the results showed that (1) warming treatment increased the species richness and abundance of Collembola in the different seasons, except in May, (2) warming increased Collembola abundance in permafrost wetlands, and the warming effect was more significant during the cold season (about eight times in April), (3) species composition differed significantly in the control and warming treatment in May and September, and (4) the Collembola species composition in permafrost wetlands was mainly determined by air humidity, indicating different responses of Collembola species to the indirect effect of warming on water availability. We found that warming was the primary factor positively affecting the abundance of Collembola. An increase of Collembola abundance and community alteration to warming could have profound cascading effects on the microbes and plants they feed on in permafrost wetlands.

Large-scale experimental warming reduces soil faunal biodiversity through peatland drying

“…As Sphagnum mosses provide habitat, and buffer changes in soil moisture due to their high water holding capacity (Bengtsson et al, 2020), reductions in Sphagnum cover could mechanistically explain the reductions in microarthropod richness that would potentially face unfavourable drier conditions. Contrary to what we found, Zhang et al (2023) using open-top chambers (OTCs) in a wetland in China showed that warming did not influence the richness of Collembola under warming-induced drier conditions. We posit that our lower collembolan richness under drier conditions might be explained by migration of species downward, as seen for a blanket bog in Sweden in Krab et al (2010), who also suggested that the combined Frontiers in Environmental Science frontiersin.org effects of higher temperatures and lower moisture levels may cause desiccation stress and strongly influence the vertical stratification of collembolans.…”