Dataset Information

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 being reasserted three months after the flood. Widespread, surface living and generalistic microarthropod species recolonized the field quickly. Prostigmata and Oribatida were more resilient or recovered to flooding than Astigmata and Gamasida. Long-term impacts, however, remain unknown and deserve further investigation.

SUBMITTER: Gonzalez-Mace O

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6117009 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

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

González-Macé Odette O Scheu Stefan S

PloS one 20180830 8

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 Col ...[more]

PMID: 30161191

Similar Datasets

Project description:BackgroundLocalized disturbances within grasslands alter biological properties and may shift species composition. For example, rare species in established communities may become dominant in successional communities if they exhibit traits well-suited to disturbance conditions. Although the idea that plant species exhibit different trait 'strategies' is well established, it is unclear how ecological selection for specific traits may change as a function of disturbance. Further, there is little data available testing whether disturbances select for single trait-characters within communities (homogenization), or allow multiple trait-types to persist (diversification). We investigated how (a) traits and (b) functional diversity of post-disturbance gap communities compared to those in adjacent undisturbed grasslands, and (c) if altered functional diversity resulted in the homogenization or diversification of functional traits.MethodsHere we emulate the impacts of an extreme disturbance in a native grassland site. We measured plant community composition of twelve paired 50 × 50 cm plots (24 total) in Alberta, Canada. Each pair consisted of one undisturbed plot and one which had all plants terminated 2 years prior. We used species abundances and a local trait database to calculate community weighted means for maximum height, specific leaf area, specific root length, leaf nitrogen percent, and root nitrogen percent. To test the impacts of disturbance on community functional traits, we calculated functional diversity measures and compared them between disturbed and undisturbed communities.ResultsWithin 2 years, species richness and evenness in disturbed communities had recovered and was equivalent to undisturbed communities. However, disturbed and undisturbed communities had distinct community compositions, resulting in lower functional divergence in disturbed plots. Further, disturbance was linked to increases in community-weighted mean trait values for resource-acquisitive traits, such as specific leaf area, and leaf and root nitrogen.DiscussionDisturbance had lasting effects on the functional traits and diversity of communities, despite traditional biodiversity measures such as richness and evenness recovering within 2 years. The trait space of gap communities shifted compared to undisturbed communities such that gap communities were dominated by traits enhancing resource uptake and growth rates. Overall, these results show that short-term disturbance fundamentally changes the functional character of early-successional communities, even if they superficially appear recovered.

Project description:Plant communities and their ecosystem functions are expected to be more resilient to future habitat fragmentation and deterioration if the species comprising the communities have a wide range of dispersal and persistence strategies. However, the extent to which the diversity of dispersal and persistence traits in plant communities is determined by the current and historical characteristics of sites and their surrounding landscape has yet to be explored.Using quantitative information on long-distance seed dispersal potential by wind and animals (dispersal in space) and on species' persistence/longevity (dispersal in time), we (i) compared levels of dispersal and persistence trait diversity (functional richness, FRic, and functional divergence, FDiv) in seminatural grassland plant communities with those expected by chance, and (ii) quantified the extent to which trait diversity was explained by current and historical landscape structure and local management history - taking into account spatial and phylogenetic autocorrel.Null model analysis revealed that more grassland communities than expected had a level of trait diversity that was lower or higher than predicted, given the level of species richness. Both the range (FRic) and divergence (FDiv) of dispersal and persistence trait values increased with grassland age. FDiv was mainly explained by the interaction between current grazing intensity and the amount of grassland habitat in the surrounding landscape in 1938.Synthesis. The study suggests that the variability of dispersal and persistence traits in grassland plant communities is driven by deterministic assembly processes, with both history and current management (and their interactions), playing a major role as determinants of trait diversity. While a long continuity of grazing management is likely to have promoted the diversity of dispersal and persistence traits in present-day grasslands, communities in sites that are well grazed at the present day, and were also surrounded by large amounts of grassland in the past, showed the highest diversity of dispersal and persistence strategies. Our results indicate that the historical context of a site within a landscape will influence the extent to which current grazing management is able to maintain a diversity of dispersal and persistence strategies and buffer communities (and their associated functions) against continuing habitat fragmentation.

Dataset Information

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

Publications

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

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets