Earthworms and soil mesofauna as early bioindicators for landfill restoration

Ashwood, Frank; Barreto, Carlos; Butt, Kevin R.; Lampert, Martin D.; Doick, Kieron J.; Vanguelova, Elena

doi:10.1071/sr21286

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 71 publications

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“…Mesostigmatid and oribatid mites, and collembolans have been used as indicators of disturbance (Milano et al, 2017;Meehan et al, 2019;Manu et al, 2021), soil pollution (Fiera, 2009;Wierzbicka et al, 2019) and landfill restoration (Ashwood et al, 2022), while both oribatid mites and collembolans respond to warming (Lindo, 2015;Meehan et al, 2020;. In the case of peatlands, oribatid mites have been shown to negatively respond to disturbance-induced lower moisture levels (Silvan et al, 2000;Lehmitz, 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Barreto

Conceição

Lima

et al. 2023

Front. Environ. Sci.

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Boreal peatlands are important ecosystems for carbon cycling because they store 1/3 of the world’s terrestrial carbon in only ∼3% of the global landmass. This high carbon storage capacity makes them a key potential mitigation strategy for increased carbon emissions induced by global climate warming. In high-carbon storage systems like peatlands, soil faunal communities are responsible for secondary decomposition of organic matter and nutrient cycling, which suggests they play an important role in the carbon cycle. Experiments have shown that warming can affect plant and microbial communities in ways that potentially shift peatlands from carbon sinks to sources. Although previous studies have found variable effects of climate change manipulations on soil communities, warming is expected to affect soil community composition mainly through reductions in moisture content, whereas elevated CO2 atmospheric concentrations are expected to only indirectly and weakly do so. In this study we used a large-scale peatland field-based experiment to test how soil microarthropod (oribatid and mesostigmatid mite, and collembolan species abundance, richness and community composition) respond to a range of experimental warming temperatures (between 0°C and +9°C) crossed with elevated CO2 conditions over 4 years in the Spruce and Peatland Responses Under Changing Environments (SPRUCE) experiment. Here we found that warming significantly decreased surface peat moisture, which in turn decreased species microarthropod richness and abundance. Specifically, oribatid and mesostigmatid mite, collembolan, and overall microarthropod richness significantly decreased under lower moisture levels. Also, the abundance of microarthropods increased under higher moisture levels. Neither warming nor elevated [CO2] affected microarthropods when analysed together or separate, except for the richness of mesostigmatids that significantly increased under warming. At the community level, communities varied significantly over time (except collembolans), and moisture was an important driver explaining community species composition. While we expect that the cumulative and interactive effects of the SPRUCE experimental treatments on soil faunal biodiversity will continue to emerge, our results already suggest effects are becoming more observable over time. Taken together, the changes belowground indicate potential changes on carbon and nitrogen cycles, as microarthropods are important players of soil food webs.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Barreto

Conceição

Lima

et al. 2023

Front. Environ. Sci.

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Global fine-resolution data on springtail abundance and community structure

Potapov,

Chen,

Striuchkova

et al. 2024

Sci Data

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Springtails (Collembola) inhabit soils from the Arctic to the Antarctic and comprise an estimated ~32% of all terrestrial arthropods on Earth. Here, we present a global, spatially-explicit database on springtail communities that includes 249,912 occurrences from 44,999 samples and 2,990 sites. These data are mainly raw sample-level records at the species level collected predominantly from private archives of the authors that were quality-controlled and taxonomically-standardised. Despite covering all continents, most of the sample-level data come from the European continent (82.5% of all samples) and represent four habitats: woodlands (57.4%), grasslands (14.0%), agrosystems (13.7%) and scrublands (9.0%). We included sampling by soil layers, and across seasons and years, representing temporal and spatial within-site variation in springtail communities. We also provided data use and sharing guidelines and R code to facilitate the use of the database by other researchers. This data paper describes a static version of the database at the publication date, but the database will be further expanded to include underrepresented regions and linked with trait data.

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Effects of Natural Land Cover, Anthropogenic Disturbance, Space, and Climate on Oribatid Mite Communities in Canada’s Oil Sands Region

et al. 2023

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Soil contains a diverse fauna and microflora that are vital for maintaining healthy soils and their various ecosystem services. Oribatid mites are typically highly abundant arthropods in the soil and are used as indicators for environmental monitoring. The aim of this study was to determine oribatid mite community response to natural land cover, anthropogenic disturbance, space, and climate in the oil sands region of Alberta, Canada. Our results found that oribatid mite total abundance was significantly reduced by mining, cultivation, and well sites. Species richness was significantly reduced by mining and cultivation. Shannon’s diversity index was significantly higher for all natural land cover types, seismic lines, and forest harvest. Additionally, species diversity was lower under the relative influence of energy-related soft linear disturbances than for naturally vegetated sites and forest harvesting, and was lowered further by anthropogenic disturbances with more impact on soil integrity (cultivation, mines, urban/industrial, road/trail verges, well sites). Abundance, richness, and diversity also increased with increased frost free period and with eastward longitude. Mite community composition included a notable composition difference between lowland habitats and upland forest types, and between natural land cover and intense anthropogenic disturbance types (e.g., mines, cultivation). Our study highlighted oribatid mite communities’ response to natural land cover, anthropogenic disturbance and spatial–climatic factors assessed over broad spatial scales and the potential utility of oribatid mites as ecosystem health indicators under multiple ecological drivers.

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Earthworms and soil mesofauna as early bioindicators for landfill restoration

Cited by 3 publications

References 71 publications

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

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

Global fine-resolution data on springtail abundance and community structure

Effects of Natural Land Cover, Anthropogenic Disturbance, Space, and Climate on Oribatid Mite Communities in Canada’s Oil Sands Region

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