Detangling ecosystem services: Open-field manipulation of soil-dwelling microarthropods provides new opportunities to investigate their effects on nitrogen cycling.

ABSTRACT: Soil microarthropods have a pivotal role in soil nitrogen cycling in that they affect microbial decomposers. A high abundance of microarthropods may increase the mobility of inorganic nitrogen ions in the soil, mainly in nitrogen-limited habitats. However, it is difficult to study ecological processes with small-sized, soil-dwelling arthropods. The effects of soil microarthropods on nitrogen cycling have mainly been studied in laboratory microcosm experiments. Therefore, we face many practical issues in investigating these effects under field conditions that remain to be resolved.We developed an open-field mesocosm setup with growing plants. In a two-part experiment, spring wheat and grass species were grown in chernozem and sandy soils. Leached ammonium and nitrate ions were measured with

SUBMITTER: Gergocs V 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9297029 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature