1. The importance of microbial and plant communities in the control of the diversity and structure of soil animal communities has been clarified over the last decade.Previous research focused on abiotic factors, niche separation and spatial patterns. Significant gaps still exist in our knowledge of the factors that control the stability of these communities over time.2. We analysed a 9-year dataset from the national Long-term Ecological Research Network of Latvia. We focused on 117 oribatid species from three Scots pine forests of different age (<40, 65 and >150 years) and structure. For each forest type, 100 samples were collected each year, providing very high replication and long time series for a soil community. We assessed different aspects of stability: we used a dynamic null model, parameterized on observed growth rates, to test the hypothesis that asynchrony in species populations stabilizes total community size;we also analysed alpha and beta diversity over time to test the hypothesis that temporal variation in species composition and relative abundances is controlled by forest attributes.3. Real communities can be more stable than their stochastic counterparts if species are asynchronous, confirming for the first time the role of asynchrony in stabilizing soil communities. Yet, while some real communities were more stable and had higher abundance and growth rates than others, they were not necessarily more asynchronous than the less stable communities. Species composition and relative abundances were also less variable in the more stable communities.4. Species asynchrony generally stabilizes species-rich communities but is not sufficient to explain the different levels of stability between forests. Forest age is a key factor explaining the different levels of overyielding and so stability. Data suggest that both asynchrony and high diversity of microhabitat structure of Scots pine forests promote the stability of soil animal communities. K E Y W O R D S asynchrony, dynamic null models, forest, soil animal biodiversity, stability, time series | 1521 Journal of Animal Ecology CARUSO et Al. S U PP O RTI N G I N FO R M ATI O N Additional supporting information may be found online in the Supporting Information section.
Abstract:In 1992-2012, a considerable amount of soil micro-arthropods has been collected annually as a part of a project of the National Long-Term Ecological Research Network of Latvia at the Mazsalaca Scots Pine forest sites of the North Vidzeme Biosphere Reserve. Until now, the data on oribatid species have not been published. This paper presents a list of oribatid species collected during 21 years of ongoing research in three pine stands of different age. The faunistic records refer to 84 species (including 17 species new to the fauna of Latvia), 1 subspecies, 1 form, 5 morphospecies and 18 unidentified taxa. The most dominant and most frequent oribatid species are Oppiella (Oppiella) nova, Tectocepheus velatus velatus and Suctobelbella falcata.
During the last three centuries, people involved in natural history sciences have produced thousands of natural history collections worldwide. Specimens have been used for scientific proof of various discoveries and for gaining new knowledge in many disciplines of science not only in the area of biodiversity but also in taxonomy, species biology and ecology, parasitology, evolution, organisms' responses to climate change, nature conservation and many other biological sub-disciplines. Despite never-ending financial struggles, the world's largest collections as well as many regional midsize collections contain billions of specimens. This provides an enormous database for present and future studies. This article presents a critical description of the material of the Institute of Biology, University of Latvia collection (IBULC) containing roughly 59,000 identified arthropod individuals of about 3,700 species, including twenty-eight primary types as a part of around ninety type specimens, to illustrate the importance of midsize regional natural history collections in detail.
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