Testing for consistency in the impacts of a burrowing ecosystem engineer on soil and vegetation characteristics across biomes.

ABSTRACT: The impacts of ecosystem engineers may be expected to vary along environmental gradients. Due to some resources being more limited in arid than in mesic environments, disturbances created by burrowing mammals are expected to have a greater ameliorating effect in arid environments, with larger differences in microhabitat conditions expected between burrows and undisturbed areas. The aim of this study was to test if the impacts of a medium-sized burrowing mammal, the aardvark, on soil properties (soil temperature, moisture and compaction) and vegetation characteristics (plant cover, species richness and species composition) are consistent across three biomes that differ strongly in annual rainfall. Burrowing affected soil and vegetation attributes, but the direction and magnitude of these bi

SUBMITTER: Louw MA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6920383 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature