Impact of forest disturbance on microarthropod communities depends on underlying ecological gradients and species traits.

ABSTRACT: Windstorms and salvage logging lead to huge soil disturbance in alpine spruce forests, potentially affecting soil-living arthropods. However, the impacts of forest loss and possible interactions with underlying ecological gradients on soil microarthropod communities remain little known, especially across different environmental conditions. Here we used DNA metabarcoding approach to study wind-induced disturbances on forest communities of springtails and soil mites. In particular, we aimed to test the effect of forest soil disturbance on the abundance, richness, species composition, and functional guilds of microarthropods. We sampled 29 pairs of windfall-forest sites across gradients of elevation, precipitation, aspect and slope, 2 years after a massive windstorm, named Vaia, which hit Nor

SUBMITTER: Nardi D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10560493 | biostudies-literature | 2023

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature