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Litter manipulation and the soil arthropod community in a lowland tropical rainforest

Research output: Contribution to Journal/MagazineJournal articlepeer-review

Published

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Litter manipulation and the soil arthropod community in a lowland tropical rainforest. / Ashford, Oliver S.; Foster, William A.; Turner, Benjamin L. et al.
In: Soil Biology and Biochemistry, Vol. 62, 07.2013, p. 5-12.

Research output: Contribution to Journal/MagazineJournal articlepeer-review

Harvard

Ashford, OS, Foster, WA, Turner, BL, Sayer, E, Sutcliffe, L & Tanner, EVJ 2013, 'Litter manipulation and the soil arthropod community in a lowland tropical rainforest', Soil Biology and Biochemistry, vol. 62, pp. 5-12. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.soilbio.2013.03.001

APA

Ashford, O. S., Foster, W. A., Turner, B. L., Sayer, E., Sutcliffe, L., & Tanner, E. V. J. (2013). Litter manipulation and the soil arthropod community in a lowland tropical rainforest. Soil Biology and Biochemistry, 62, 5-12. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.soilbio.2013.03.001

Vancouver

Ashford OS, Foster WA, Turner BL, Sayer E, Sutcliffe L, Tanner EVJ. Litter manipulation and the soil arthropod community in a lowland tropical rainforest. Soil Biology and Biochemistry. 2013 Jul;62:5-12. doi: 10.1016/j.soilbio.2013.03.001

Author

Ashford, Oliver S. ; Foster, William A. ; Turner, Benjamin L. et al. / Litter manipulation and the soil arthropod community in a lowland tropical rainforest. In: Soil Biology and Biochemistry. 2013 ; Vol. 62. pp. 5-12.

Bibtex

@article{da3de25f92f745a99080a0a53df22ff3,
title = "Litter manipulation and the soil arthropod community in a lowland tropical rainforest",
abstract = "Tropical soil arthropod communities are highly diverse and provide a number of important ecosystem services, including the maintenance of soil structure, regulation of hydrological processes, nutrient cycling and decomposition. Experiments in temperate regions suggest that litter dynamics are important in determining the abundance, richness and community composition of soil fauna, but there is little information for lowland tropical forests. We used a long-term litter manipulation experiment (removing, doubling and control) in a neotropical forest to investigate the consequences of changing litter dynamics on the soil arthropod community. The abundance and biomass of arthropods were reduced significantly by the removal of litter, but not affected by litter addition. Litter manipulation had no effect on simple measures of taxonomic richness or diversity, but multivariate ordination techniques revealed a significant shift in arthropod community composition with the removal, but not addition, of litter. This suggests the overall importance of top-down controls on the arthropod community in this ecosystem, with bottom-up influences only important following the removal of large quantities of litter. Of the parameters measured, the faunal composition of experimental plots was best predicted by litter depth and the concentrations of total carbon and readily-exchangeable phosphorus (in order of importance), highlighting the influential role of soil chemical properties, in addition to the physical properties of litter, in shaping soil arthropod communities. Comparison with the results of a previous study of litter-dwelling fauna in the same litter manipulation experiment suggested that the soil and litter arthropod communities are influenced by different parameters: total carbon and litter depth for the soil community, but sodium and calcium for the litter community, although phosphorus was important in both environments. We conclude that arthropod community composition is controlled by different factors in the soil than in the litter and is affected by decreasing, but not increasing, depth of litter.",
keywords = "Litter manipulation, Soil fauna , Neotropics , Community composition , Chemical parameters , Physical parameters",
author = "Ashford, {Oliver S.} and Foster, {William A.} and Turner, {Benjamin L.} and Emma Sayer and Laura Sutcliffe and Tanner, {Edmund V.J.}",
year = "2013",
month = jul,
doi = "10.1016/j.soilbio.2013.03.001",
language = "English",
volume = "62",
pages = "5--12",
journal = "Soil Biology and Biochemistry",
issn = "0038-0717",
publisher = "Elsevier Ltd",

}

RIS

TY - JOUR

T1 - Litter manipulation and the soil arthropod community in a lowland tropical rainforest

AU - Ashford, Oliver S.

AU - Foster, William A.

AU - Turner, Benjamin L.

AU - Sayer, Emma

AU - Sutcliffe, Laura

AU - Tanner, Edmund V.J.

PY - 2013/7

Y1 - 2013/7

N2 - Tropical soil arthropod communities are highly diverse and provide a number of important ecosystem services, including the maintenance of soil structure, regulation of hydrological processes, nutrient cycling and decomposition. Experiments in temperate regions suggest that litter dynamics are important in determining the abundance, richness and community composition of soil fauna, but there is little information for lowland tropical forests. We used a long-term litter manipulation experiment (removing, doubling and control) in a neotropical forest to investigate the consequences of changing litter dynamics on the soil arthropod community. The abundance and biomass of arthropods were reduced significantly by the removal of litter, but not affected by litter addition. Litter manipulation had no effect on simple measures of taxonomic richness or diversity, but multivariate ordination techniques revealed a significant shift in arthropod community composition with the removal, but not addition, of litter. This suggests the overall importance of top-down controls on the arthropod community in this ecosystem, with bottom-up influences only important following the removal of large quantities of litter. Of the parameters measured, the faunal composition of experimental plots was best predicted by litter depth and the concentrations of total carbon and readily-exchangeable phosphorus (in order of importance), highlighting the influential role of soil chemical properties, in addition to the physical properties of litter, in shaping soil arthropod communities. Comparison with the results of a previous study of litter-dwelling fauna in the same litter manipulation experiment suggested that the soil and litter arthropod communities are influenced by different parameters: total carbon and litter depth for the soil community, but sodium and calcium for the litter community, although phosphorus was important in both environments. We conclude that arthropod community composition is controlled by different factors in the soil than in the litter and is affected by decreasing, but not increasing, depth of litter.

AB - Tropical soil arthropod communities are highly diverse and provide a number of important ecosystem services, including the maintenance of soil structure, regulation of hydrological processes, nutrient cycling and decomposition. Experiments in temperate regions suggest that litter dynamics are important in determining the abundance, richness and community composition of soil fauna, but there is little information for lowland tropical forests. We used a long-term litter manipulation experiment (removing, doubling and control) in a neotropical forest to investigate the consequences of changing litter dynamics on the soil arthropod community. The abundance and biomass of arthropods were reduced significantly by the removal of litter, but not affected by litter addition. Litter manipulation had no effect on simple measures of taxonomic richness or diversity, but multivariate ordination techniques revealed a significant shift in arthropod community composition with the removal, but not addition, of litter. This suggests the overall importance of top-down controls on the arthropod community in this ecosystem, with bottom-up influences only important following the removal of large quantities of litter. Of the parameters measured, the faunal composition of experimental plots was best predicted by litter depth and the concentrations of total carbon and readily-exchangeable phosphorus (in order of importance), highlighting the influential role of soil chemical properties, in addition to the physical properties of litter, in shaping soil arthropod communities. Comparison with the results of a previous study of litter-dwelling fauna in the same litter manipulation experiment suggested that the soil and litter arthropod communities are influenced by different parameters: total carbon and litter depth for the soil community, but sodium and calcium for the litter community, although phosphorus was important in both environments. We conclude that arthropod community composition is controlled by different factors in the soil than in the litter and is affected by decreasing, but not increasing, depth of litter.

KW - Litter manipulation

KW - Soil fauna

KW - Neotropics

KW - Community composition

KW - Chemical parameters

KW - Physical parameters

U2 - 10.1016/j.soilbio.2013.03.001

DO - 10.1016/j.soilbio.2013.03.001

M3 - Journal article

VL - 62

SP - 5

EP - 12

JO - Soil Biology and Biochemistry

JF - Soil Biology and Biochemistry

SN - 0038-0717

ER -