Context dependency of the density–body mass relationship in litter invertebrates along an elevational gradient

Xu, Guoce; Zhang, Shuang; Lin, Yongjun; Ma, Keping

doi:10.1016/j.soilbio.2015.06.010

Cited by 6 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 58 publications

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“…Our study demonstrates the changes in the DBM relationships in response to changes in environmental conditions, which is supported by several studies (George and Lindo , Xu et al. , Zhao et al. ).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

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Disturbance regulates the density–body‐mass relationship of soil fauna

Langevelde

Comor

Bie

et al. 2019

Ecological Applications

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Theory on the density–body‐mass (DBM) relationship predicts that the density of animal species decreases by the power of −0.75 per unit increase in their body mass, or by the power of −1 when taxa across trophic levels are studied. This relationship is, however, largely debated, as the slope often deviates from the theoretical predictions. Here, we tested the ability of the DBM relationship to reflect changes in the structure of communities subjected to an anthropogenic disturbance. The slope would become less steep if smaller animals were more impacted by the disturbance than the larger ones, whereas the slope would become steeper if larger animals were more affected than the smaller ones. We tested the changes in the DBM relationship by sampling soil fauna, i.e., nematodes, Collembola, and larger arthropods, from a semiarid grassland before and after spraying diesel fuel as disturbance. We applied three different treatments: a control, a light disturbance, and an intense disturbance. We found that the slopes of the DBM relationships before the disturbance were around −1 as predicted by theory. The slope became more positive (i.e., less steep) just after the disturbance, especially after the intense disturbance as smaller fauna suffered the most and early colonizers had larger body mass. Interestingly, we observed that the slopes converged back to −1 by 2 months post‐disturbance. Our findings show that the response of soil fauna communities to anthropogenic disturbances could explain the large variation in observed slopes of the DBM relationships. We experimentally demonstrate that an animal community, when disturbed, shows a temporal pattern of DBM relationships ranging from deviations from the predicted slope to convergence to the predicted slope with time. We recommend that deviations in the DBM relationships after disturbances can provide insights in the trajectory of community recovery, and hence could be used for biomonitoring.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

“…Several studies have indeed shown that the DBM relationships vary between different environmental conditions (e.g., Xu et al. , Zhao et al. ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Disturbance regulates the density–body‐mass relationship of soil fauna

Langevelde

Comor

Bie

et al. 2019

Ecological Applications

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“…Disturbance is predicted to result in the loss of species, in particular of large‐bodied ones (Brose et al, ; Cardillo et al, ). However, empirical evidence how disturbance affects size spectra of soil invertebrate communities remains controversial and is likely context‐dependent (Xu, Zhang, Lin, & Ma, ). The slope of the abundance–body mass relationship in nematode communities was steeper in forage land and cropland than in grass‐shrubland and secondary forest (Zhao et al, ), and agricultural intensification may result in the loss of large‐bodied earthworms (Andriuzzi, Pulleman, Cluzeau, & Pérès, ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Linking size spectrum, energy flux and trophic multifunctionality in soil food webs of tropical land‐use systems

Potapov

Klarner

Sandmann

et al. 2019

Journal of Animal Ecology

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1. Many ecosystem functions depend on the structure of food webs, which heavily relies on the body size spectrum of the community. Despite that, little is known on how the size spectrum of soil animals responds to agricultural practices in tropical land-use systems and how these responses affect ecosystem functioning.2. We studied land-use-induced changes in below-ground communities in tropical lowland ecosystems in Sumatra (Jambi province, Indonesia), a hot spot of tropical rainforest conversion into rubber and oil palm plantations. The study included ca. 30,000 measured individuals from 33 high-order taxa of meso-and macrofauna spanning eight orders of magnitude in body mass. Using individual body masses, we calculated the metabolism of trophic guilds and used food web models to calculate energy fluxes and infer ecosystem functions, such as decomposition, herbivory, primary and intraguild predation.3. Land-use change was associated with reduced abundance and taxonomic diversity of soil invertebrates, but strong increase in total biomass and moderate changes in total energy flux. These changes were due to increased biomass of large-sized decomposers in soil, in particular earthworms, with their share in community metabolism increasing from 11% in rainforest to 59%-76% in jungle rubber, and rubber and oil palm plantations. Decomposition, that is the energy flux to decomposers, stayed unchanged, but herbivory, primary and intraguild predation decreased by an order of magnitude in plantation systems. Intraguild predation was very important, being responsible for 38% of the energy flux in rainforest according to our model. 4. Conversion of rainforest into monoculture plantations is associated by an uneven loss of size classes and trophic levels of soil invertebrates resulting in sequestration of energy in large-sized primary consumers and restricted flux of energy to higher trophic levels. Pronounced differences between rainforest and jungle rubber reflect sensitivity of rainforest soil animal communities to moderate land-use changes. Soil communities in plantation systems sustained high total energy flux despite reduced biodiversity. The high energy flux into large decomposers but low Additional supporting information may be found online in the Supporting Information section at the end of the article. How to cite this article: Potapov AM, Klarner B, Sandmann D, Widyastuti R, Scheu S. Linking size spectrum, energy flux and trophic multifunctionality in soil food webs of tropical land-use systems.

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“…This is particularly true for soil invertebrates outside Europe and North America (Brehm et al, 2003 ; Guo et al, 2013 ; McCain & Grytnes, 2010 ; Wu & Lei, 2013 ). Some recent studies have investigated changes in the community structure of soil invertebrates across altitudinal gradients in temperate and tropical ecosystems (Scheu et al, 2008 ; Traunspurger et al, 2017 ; Xu et al, 2015 ). Density and species diversity of oribatid mites have been found to decline with increasing altitude (Illig et al, 2010 ), while testate amoebae showed a hump‐shaped pattern peaking at intermediate altitude (Krashevska et al, 2007 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Drivers of Collembola assemblages along an altitudinal gradient in northeast China

Xie

Sun

Lux

et al. 2022

Ecology and Evolution

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Altitudinal changes in the diversity of plants and animals have been well documented; however, soil animals received little attention in this context and it is unclear whether their diversity follows general altitudinal distribution patterns. Changbai Mountain is one of few well‐conserved mountain regions comprising natural ecosystems on the Eurasian continent. Here, we present a comprehensive analysis of the diversity and community composition of Collembola along ten altitudinal sites representing five vegetation types from forest to alpine tundra. Among 7834 Collembola individuals, 84 morphospecies were identified. Species richness varied marginally significant with altitude and generally followed a unimodal relationship with altitude. By contrast, the density of Collembola did not change in a consistent way with altitude. Collembola communities changed gradually with altitude, with local habitat‐related factors (soil and litter carbon‐to‐nitrogen ratio, litter carbon content, and soil pH) and climatic variables (precipitation seasonality) identified as major drivers of changes in Collembola community composition. Notably, local habitat‐related factors explained more variation in Collembola assemblages than climatic variables. The results suggest that local habitat‐related factors including precipitation and temperature are the main drivers of changes in Collembola communities with altitude. Specifically, soil and litter carbon‐to‐nitrogen ratio correlated positively with Collembola communities at high altitudes, whereas soil pH correlated positively at low altitudes. This documents that altitudinal gradients provide unique opportunities for identifying factors driving the community composition of not only above‐ but also belowground invertebrates.

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Context dependency of the density–body mass relationship in litter invertebrates along an elevational gradient

Cited by 6 publications

References 58 publications

Disturbance regulates the density–body‐mass relationship of soil fauna

Disturbance regulates the density–body‐mass relationship of soil fauna

Linking size spectrum, energy flux and trophic multifunctionality in soil food webs of tropical land‐use systems

Drivers of Collembola assemblages along an altitudinal gradient in northeast China

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