The limited spatial scale of dispersal in soil arthropods revealed with whole-community haplotype-level metabarcoding

Abstract

15Soil mesofauna communities are hyperdiverse and critical for ecosystem functioning. 16 However, our knowledge on spatial structure and underlying processes of community 17 assembly for soil arthropods is scarce, hampered by limited empirical data on species 18 diversity and turnover. We implement a high-throughput-sequencing approach to 19 generate comparative data for thousands of arthropods at three hierarchical levels: 20 genetic, species and supra-specific lineages. A joint analysis of the spatial arrangement 21 across these levels can reveal the predominant processes driving the variation in 22 biological assemblages at the local scale. This multi-hierarchical approach was performed 23 using haplotype-level-COI metabarcoding of entire communities of mites, springtails and 24 beetles from three Iberian mountain regions. Tens of thousands of specimens were 25 2 extracted from deep and superficial soil layers and produced comparative 26 phylogeographic data for >1000 co-distributed species and nearly 3000 haplotypes. Local 27 assemblages were highly distinctive between grasslands and forests, and within each of 28 them showed strong spatial structures and high endemicity at the scale of a few kilometres 29 or less. The local distance-decay patterns were self-similar for the haplotypes and higher 30 hierarchical entities, and this fractal structure was very similar in all three regions, 31 pointing to a significant role of dispersal limitation driving the local-scale community 32 assembly. Our results from whole-community metabarcoding provide unprecedented 33 insight into how dispersal limitations constrain mesofauna community structure within 34 local spatial settings over evolutionary timescales. If generalized across wider areas, the 35 high turnover and endemicity in the soil locally may indicate extremely high richness 36 globally, challenging our current estimations of total arthropod-diversity on Earth. 37 38 39

Forest disturbance and arthropods: small‐scale canopy and understory disturbances alter movement of mobile arthropods

“…These findings suggest that arthropods have the capacity to respond to environmental changes to some extent, although for many taxa, their responses may be spatially constrained. For example, soil arthropods including mites, springtails, and beetles displayed strong spatial community structure at the genetic-and species-level among forest stands at a 1 km scale, indicating highly constrained patterns of movement and dispersal limitations to community assembly (Arribas et al 2021). In our study, most arthropods were Fig.…”

Editorial 2022

“…Metabarcoding has revolutionized our ability to survey biological diversity in a number of previously intractable habitats. Taking advantage of this tool, a From the Cover manuscript by Arribas et al (2021) used haplotype‐level community metabarcoding to examine soil arthropod diversity in three regions of the Iberian mountains, gleaning data from >1000 species and 3000 haplotypes. The authors used this rich dataset to explore turnover of community assembly across and within habitats, finding strong differentiation at both spatial scales.…”

Revealing community assembly through barcoding: Mediterranean butterflies and dispersal variation

“…Baselga et al., 2013, 2015; Craft et al., 2010; Gómez‐Rodríguez et al., 2019; Múrria et al., 2015; Papadopoulou et al., 2011; Salces‐Castellano et al., 2020; Scalercio et al., 2020). Together with advances in both (a) the generation of community‐level metabarcode data and (b) the recovery of reliable intraspecific sequence variation (Andújar et al, 2020; Elbrecht, Vamos, Steinke, & Leese, 2018; Turon, Antich, Palacín, Præbel, & Wangensteen, 2019), the logistical constraints for site‐based community barcoding are greatly reduced, even for species‐rich and hyperdiverse assemblages (Arribas, Andújar, Salces‐Castellano, Emerson, & Vogler, 2020). Site‐based community metabarcoding thus presents itself as an exciting opportunity, particularly given the potential for revealing otherwise hidden patterns, as exemplified by Scalercio et al.…”