Response of Collembola and Acari communities to summer flooding in a grassland plant diversity experiment.

ABSTRACT: Flooding frequency is predicted to increase during the next decades in Europe. Therefore, it is important to understand how short-term disturbance events affect soil biota providing essential ecosystem functions and uncover factors modulating their response such as plant community composition. Here we report on the response of soil microarthropod communities (Collembola and Acari) to a severe summer flood in 2013, which affected major parts of central Europe. Collembola and Acari density and Collembola and Oribatida richness were strongly affected by the flood, but they recovered within three months. Effects of plant community composition on soil microarthropods disappeared after the flood, presumably due to homogenization of the field, but the effects of plant community were in a stage of

SUBMITTER: Gonzalez-Mace O 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6117009 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature