Indirect Short- and Long-Term Effects of Aboveground Invertebrate and Vertebrate Herbivores on Soil Microarthropod Communities
Recognition is growing that besides ungulates, small vertebrate and invertebrate herbivores are important drivers of grassland functioning. Even though soil microarthropods play key roles in several soil processes, effects of herbivores—especially those of smaller body size—on their communities are...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:4349861 2023-05-15T18:50:34+02:00 Indirect Short- and Long-Term Effects of Aboveground Invertebrate and Vertebrate Herbivores on Soil Microarthropod Communities Vandegehuchte, Martijn L. Raschein, Ursina Schütz, Martin Gwiazdowicz, Dariusz J. Risch, Anita C. 2015-03-04 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4349861 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25738942 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0118679 en eng Public Library of Science http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25738942 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0118679 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited CC-BY Research Article Text 2015 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0118679 2015-03-22T01:00:22Z Recognition is growing that besides ungulates, small vertebrate and invertebrate herbivores are important drivers of grassland functioning. Even though soil microarthropods play key roles in several soil processes, effects of herbivores—especially those of smaller body size—on their communities are not well understood. Therefore, we progressively excluded large, medium and small vertebrate and invertebrate herbivores for three growing seasons using size-selective fences in two vegetation types in subalpine grasslands; short-grass and tall-grass vegetation generated by high and low historical levels of ungulate grazing. Herbivore exclusions generally had few effects on microarthropod communities, but exclusion of all herbivore groups resulted in decreased total springtail and Poduromorpha richness compared with exclusion of only ungulates and medium-sized mammals, regardless of vegetation type. The tall-grass vegetation had a higher total springtail richness and mesostigmatid mite abundance than the short-grass vegetation and a different oribatid mite community composition. Although several biotic and abiotic variables differed between the exclusion treatments and vegetation types, effects on soil microarthropods were best explained by differences in nutrient and fibre content of the previous year’s vegetation, a proxy for litter quality, and to a lesser extent soil temperature. After three growing seasons, smaller herbivores had a stronger impact on these functionally important soil microarthropod communities than large herbivores. Over longer time-scales, however, large grazers created two different vegetation types and thereby influenced microarthropod communities bottom-up, e.g. by altering resource quality. Hence, both short- and long-term consequences of herbivory affected the structure of the soil microarthropod community. Text Mite Springtail PubMed Central (PMC) PLOS ONE 10 3 e0118679 |
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Research Article Vandegehuchte, Martijn L. Raschein, Ursina Schütz, Martin Gwiazdowicz, Dariusz J. Risch, Anita C. Indirect Short- and Long-Term Effects of Aboveground Invertebrate and Vertebrate Herbivores on Soil Microarthropod Communities |
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Research Article |
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Recognition is growing that besides ungulates, small vertebrate and invertebrate herbivores are important drivers of grassland functioning. Even though soil microarthropods play key roles in several soil processes, effects of herbivores—especially those of smaller body size—on their communities are not well understood. Therefore, we progressively excluded large, medium and small vertebrate and invertebrate herbivores for three growing seasons using size-selective fences in two vegetation types in subalpine grasslands; short-grass and tall-grass vegetation generated by high and low historical levels of ungulate grazing. Herbivore exclusions generally had few effects on microarthropod communities, but exclusion of all herbivore groups resulted in decreased total springtail and Poduromorpha richness compared with exclusion of only ungulates and medium-sized mammals, regardless of vegetation type. The tall-grass vegetation had a higher total springtail richness and mesostigmatid mite abundance than the short-grass vegetation and a different oribatid mite community composition. Although several biotic and abiotic variables differed between the exclusion treatments and vegetation types, effects on soil microarthropods were best explained by differences in nutrient and fibre content of the previous year’s vegetation, a proxy for litter quality, and to a lesser extent soil temperature. After three growing seasons, smaller herbivores had a stronger impact on these functionally important soil microarthropod communities than large herbivores. Over longer time-scales, however, large grazers created two different vegetation types and thereby influenced microarthropod communities bottom-up, e.g. by altering resource quality. Hence, both short- and long-term consequences of herbivory affected the structure of the soil microarthropod community. |
format |
Text |
author |
Vandegehuchte, Martijn L. Raschein, Ursina Schütz, Martin Gwiazdowicz, Dariusz J. Risch, Anita C. |
author_facet |
Vandegehuchte, Martijn L. Raschein, Ursina Schütz, Martin Gwiazdowicz, Dariusz J. Risch, Anita C. |
author_sort |
Vandegehuchte, Martijn L. |
title |
Indirect Short- and Long-Term Effects of Aboveground Invertebrate and Vertebrate Herbivores on Soil Microarthropod Communities |
title_short |
Indirect Short- and Long-Term Effects of Aboveground Invertebrate and Vertebrate Herbivores on Soil Microarthropod Communities |
title_full |
Indirect Short- and Long-Term Effects of Aboveground Invertebrate and Vertebrate Herbivores on Soil Microarthropod Communities |
title_fullStr |
Indirect Short- and Long-Term Effects of Aboveground Invertebrate and Vertebrate Herbivores on Soil Microarthropod Communities |
title_full_unstemmed |
Indirect Short- and Long-Term Effects of Aboveground Invertebrate and Vertebrate Herbivores on Soil Microarthropod Communities |
title_sort |
indirect short- and long-term effects of aboveground invertebrate and vertebrate herbivores on soil microarthropod communities |
publisher |
Public Library of Science |
publishDate |
2015 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4349861 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25738942 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0118679 |
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Mite Springtail |
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Mite Springtail |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25738942 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0118679 |
op_rights |
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited |
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CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0118679 |
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PLOS ONE |
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10 |
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3 |
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e0118679 |
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