Evaluating community effects of a Keystone Ant,<i>Azteca sericeasur,</i>on<i>Inga micheliana</i>leaf litter decomposition in a shaded coffee agro‐ecosystem

Schmitt, Lauren; Bolivar, Aponte-Rolon,; Perfecto, Ivette

doi:10.1111/btp.12833

Cited by 5 publications

(6 citation statements)

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“…Here, we describe the magnitude of the nutrient flux of a coffee mass bloom and its consequences for decomposition and detritivore community composition in a shaded organic coffee farm in southern Mexico. We focused on Collembola as part of the detritivore community because of their important role in decomposition (Yang et al 2012) and their abundance in our study system (Schmitt et al 2020). Our study addressed these three main objectives with the following hypotheses: H 1: Coffee flower petals will have higher nutrient concentrations than coffee leaf tissue and represent an important pool of nutrients on a farm scale.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Who gives a flux? Synchronous flowering ofCoffea arabicaaccelerates leaf litter decomposition

Schmitt

Perfecto

2020

Ecosphere

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Coffee (Coffea arabica) flowers synchronously and flowers are only open for a few days before senescing. Flower petals often decompose easily, containing higher concentrations of nutrients relative to other plant tissues. Thus, a pulse of petals into the detrital pool could be beneficial for the decomposer community and accelerate decomposition processes. Our research assessed the magnitude of the pulse of petals within a shaded coffee farm, and the impact of petals on the litter arthropod community and on the rate of leaf litter decomposition. Three plots of 12 coffee plants were monitored throughout the flowering period to estimate the magnitude of the bloom. Pitfall traps were used to assess the litter arthropod community before and after flowering. Finally, litterbags with C. arabica leaves alone and C. arabica leaves with flower petals were used to compare the effect of petals on decomposition rates. The average number of flowers open per plant at the peak of the bloom was 792 flowers. When scaling to obtain an estimate per hectare in a year, our results indicate flower petals could contribute 26.27 kg of nitrogen, 2.03 kg of phosphorus, and 26.7 kg of potassium. The leaf litter community did not change during our sampling, suggesting that any community effects may be acting on a longer time scale or smaller spatial scale. Leaf litter decomposed nearly three times as quickly in litterbags that included flower petals, relative to litterbags with only C. arabica leaf litter in the first month and twice as fast in the second month. The rate of decomposition with petals exceeded the rate of decomposition without petals and was highest after one month, though the benefit continued after two months. Our results demonstrate that the presence of flower petals can accelerate short‐term decomposition processes.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Who gives a flux? Synchronous flowering ofCoffea arabicaaccelerates leaf litter decomposition

Schmitt

Perfecto

2020

Ecosphere

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“…Similar results were reported by Murnen et al (2013) when they compared ant communities among forest, sun‐coffee, and shaded‐coffee habitats and found that habitat type did influence ant abundance and richness, but not food addition. Schmitt et al (2020) examined the decomposition of I. micheliana leaves but found no difference; it was the presence of A. sericeasur that changed the leaf litter ant community composition. This points towards higher order ecological interactions influencing ants in the leaf litter.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Between two trees: Environmental effects of I. micheliana and A. latifolia on leaf litter ants in a coffee agroecosystem

Rolón

Perfecto

2023

Ecosphere

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Shade trees provide important ecological services that support productivity in coffee agroforestry systems. Processes such as biological nitrogen fixation play a key role in this. Less is known, however, about potential indirect mechanisms by which nitrogen fixation supports coffee productivity. One potential route for this to occur is by providing ecological benefits to other above-and belowground organisms that enrich the overall function of agroecosystems. A useful lens with which to evaluate the ecological benefits to these communities under shade trees is to assess how ground-dwelling ant communities respond to the quality of leaf litter from established nitrogen (N)-fixing tree species. Here, we use two trees commonly planted in coffee agroecosystems: Inga micheliana, an N-fixing species, and Alchornea latifolia, a non-N-fixing species. In this study, we set out to answer the following questions: (1) How does the leaf litter environment differ between I. micheliana and A. latifolia? (2) Do differences in environmental factors between I. micheliana and A. latifolia correlate with differences in ant abundance and species richness? and (3) Do differences in environmental factors between I. micheliana and A. latifolia correlate with differences in ant community composition? Twenty-eight randomly selected sites (14 I. micheliana and 14 A. latifolia) were established within a 45-ha plot in a shaded organic coffee farm in Chiapas, Mexico. Three 1-m 2 quadrats within a 5-m radius from the base of the selected trees were established, and the leaf litter within the quadrats was removed and sieved.Ant specimens were extracted from leaf litter collected from quadrats using the mini-Winkler method and identified to genus and species, or morphospecies, level.Results indicate that I. micheliana, the N-fixing species, has a lower C:N ratio than A. latifolia. Differences in C:N ratios are correlated with ant abundance but not with ant species richness. Distance to edge (in meters) has significant effects on leaf litter ant abundance, richness, and species composition. Results suggest that there may be unaccounted feedbacks from N-and non-N-fixing vegetation to brown food webs enabling them to sustain similar ground-dwelling ant communities.

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“…Collectively, results were somewhat inconsistent with initial hypotheses: Azteca ant nests were indeed partially associated with smaller soil aggregate distribution parameters, indicating relatively larger soil aggregates, which aligned with exclusion of ground ant burrowing and soil aggregate fragmenting activity; however, rather than infiltration being slower due to excluded ground ant burrowing activity, the opposing result of faster infiltration and lower soil nitrogen, potentially from leaching, aligned with the larger macro-aggregate results, which also suggested larger pores likely occurring between them. This suggests that arboreal ant nest effects on soils can appear direct, amid both potentially direct (Clay et al 2013) and emerging indirect (Ennis 2010; Salinas, Vandermeer, and Perfecto 2019; Schmitt and Perfecto 2020) underlying processes.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Azteca sericeasur is a local keystone arboreal ant (Vandermeer et al 2010; Vandermeer et al 2019; Vandermeer 2021) that nests relatively indiscriminately in shade trees in this census plot (Kevin Li et al 2016), mostly in trunks or occasionally constructed carton nests (Clay et al 2013). A. sericeasur foraging can extend to nearby coffee bushes within 10 m (Ennis, Perfecto, and Vandermeer 2023), having cascading effects on coffee plant-associated arthropods, via predation, competitive exclusion, and aggression (Vandermeer, Perfecto, and Philpott 2010; Perfecto, Vandermeer, and Philpott 2014; Vannette, Bichier, and Philpott 2017); via mutualisms with extra-floral nectaries and Hemiptera, like Coccus viridis (Hsieh et al 2012; Hsieh 2015) and Octolecanium (Salinas, Vandermeer, and Perfecto 2019; Livingston, White, and Kratz 2008); and even have cascading effects on litter-dwelling ant communities (Ennis 2010; Salinas, Vandermeer, and Perfecto 2019; Schmitt and Perfecto 2020).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Furthermore, similar to effects of leaf-cutting ants (Hudson et al 2009; Sousa-souto et al 2012), when ant-plant mutualisms are involved (Vandermeer and Perfecto 2019; Vandermeer et al 2019), individual ant taxon foraging behaviors can be altered by the presence of extra-floral nectaries in tree canopies (Godschalx et al 2015; Passos and Leal 2019; Nogueira et al 2020), which can benefit the tree (Wagner and Nicklen 2010), but may replace other existing phloem-feeding insect-tending relationships nearby (Perfecto and Vandermeer 2006; Styrsky and Eubanks 2007). In cases where ants have very noticeable effects on their surrounding habitat (Morris, Vandermeer, and Perfecto 2015; Vannette, Bichier, and Philpott 2017; MacDougal 2019; Wildtruth and Perfecto 2023), even arboreal nesting activity has been shown to be associated with litter communities (Donoso et al 2013) and decomposition (Schmitt and Perfecto 2020), soil nutrients (Clay et al 2013; Godschalx et al 2015; J. M. Lucas, Clay, and Kaspari 2018), soil microbiomes (J. Lucas et al 2017), and host trees (Livingston, White, and Kratz 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Above- and below-ground links mediated by arboreal ants and host tree modify soil aggregation scaling, infiltration, and chemistry

Medina,

Schmitt,

Perfecto

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Soils are increasingly recognized as complex systems, emphasizing a need to study unique properties such as long-tailed scaling laws and the role of indirect interactions among arboreal above- and below-ground soil invertebrates. However, few studies consider the above-below-ground connections mediated by invertebrates’ activity and behavior compared to mediated by tree physiology. Given previous work showing that arboreal ants can compete and affect ground foragers as well as alter foraging behavior on different host trees, it is plausible that persistent above-ground ant nesting could extend to affect soil properties including structure and chemistry, mediated by ground ant exclusion. This study analyzes soil aggregation, water infiltration, and macro-chemical data associated with longer-term (5+ year) ant nesting in a rustic tropical agroforest. Results show that, 1) ant nesting maintained scaling law exponents or fractal dimensions of soil aggregate size distributions, and was significantly associated with relatively larger micro-aggregate diameters and log-normal variance in macro-aggregate size distributions, suggesting more consistent (less variable) underlying aggregation processes similar to host tree species effects; 2) areas in the vicinity of trees with no dominant ant nests had three-times faster water infiltration than in the vicinity of trees with dominant ant nests; and 3) a tendency toward changes in soil carbon and nitrogen stocks by one-quarter depending on host tree. These patterns are consistent with expected effects of ground ant suppression by an aggressive keystone arboreal ant, and are supported by previous studies reporting positive ground ant nest effects on soil chemistry and documenting ground ant foraging as a source of soil aggregate fragmentation. This study presents new ecological processes affecting ecosystem-scale functions, and suggests that future research on indirect interaction cascades would be beneficial to advance fundamental understanding of whole-ecosystem processes.

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Evaluating community effects of a Keystone Ant,Azteca sericeasur,onInga michelianaleaf litter decomposition in a shaded coffee agro‐ecosystem

Abstract: The activity of animals can have important impacts on decomposition dynamics, with accelerating or decelerating effects (Gessner

Cited by 5 publications

References 65 publications

Who gives a flux? Synchronous flowering ofCoffea arabicaaccelerates leaf litter decomposition

Who gives a flux? Synchronous flowering ofCoffea arabicaaccelerates leaf litter decomposition

Between two trees: Environmental effects of I. micheliana and A. latifolia on leaf litter ants in a coffee agroecosystem

Above- and below-ground links mediated by arboreal ants and host tree modify soil aggregation scaling, infiltration, and chemistry

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