TY - JOUR
T1 - Fast attrition of springtail communities by experimental drought and richness–decomposition relationships across Europe
AU - Peguero, Guille
AU - Sol, Daniel
AU - Arnedo, Miquel
AU - Petersen, Henning
AU - Salmon, Sandrine
AU - Ponge, Jean François
AU - Maspons, Joan
AU - Emmett, Bridget
AU - Beier, Claus
AU - Schmidt, Inger K.
AU - Tietema, Albert
AU - De Angelis, Paolo
AU - Kovács-Láng, Edit
AU - Kröel-Dulay, György
AU - Estiarte, Marc
AU - Bartrons, Mireia
AU - Holmstrup, Martin
AU - Janssens, Ivan A.
AU - Peñuelas, Josep
PY - 2019/8/1
Y1 - 2019/8/1
N2 - © 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Soil fauna play a fundamental role on key ecosystem functions like organic matter decomposition, although how local assemblages are responding to climate change and whether these changes may have consequences to ecosystem functioning is less clear. Previous studies have revealed that a continued environmental stress may result in poorer communities by filtering out the most sensitive species. However, these experiments have rarely been applied to climate change factors combining multiyear and multisite standardized field treatments across climatically contrasting regions, which has limited drawing general conclusions. Moreover, other facets of biodiversity, such as functional and phylogenetic diversity, potentially more closely linked to ecosystem functioning, have been largely neglected. Here, we report that the abundance, species richness, phylogenetic diversity, and functional richness of springtails (Subclass Collembola), a major group of fungivores and detritivores, decreased within 4 years of experimental drought across six European shrublands. The loss of phylogenetic and functional richness was higher than expected by the loss of species richness, leading to communities of phylogenetically similar species sharing evolutionary conserved traits. Additionally, despite the great climatic differences among study sites, we found that taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional richness of springtail communities alone were able to explain up to 30% of the variation in annual decomposition rates. Altogether, our results suggest that the forecasted reductions in precipitation associated with climate change may erode springtail communities and likely other drought-sensitive soil invertebrates, thereby retarding litter decomposition and nutrient cycling in ecosystems.
AB - © 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Soil fauna play a fundamental role on key ecosystem functions like organic matter decomposition, although how local assemblages are responding to climate change and whether these changes may have consequences to ecosystem functioning is less clear. Previous studies have revealed that a continued environmental stress may result in poorer communities by filtering out the most sensitive species. However, these experiments have rarely been applied to climate change factors combining multiyear and multisite standardized field treatments across climatically contrasting regions, which has limited drawing general conclusions. Moreover, other facets of biodiversity, such as functional and phylogenetic diversity, potentially more closely linked to ecosystem functioning, have been largely neglected. Here, we report that the abundance, species richness, phylogenetic diversity, and functional richness of springtails (Subclass Collembola), a major group of fungivores and detritivores, decreased within 4 years of experimental drought across six European shrublands. The loss of phylogenetic and functional richness was higher than expected by the loss of species richness, leading to communities of phylogenetically similar species sharing evolutionary conserved traits. Additionally, despite the great climatic differences among study sites, we found that taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional richness of springtail communities alone were able to explain up to 30% of the variation in annual decomposition rates. Altogether, our results suggest that the forecasted reductions in precipitation associated with climate change may erode springtail communities and likely other drought-sensitive soil invertebrates, thereby retarding litter decomposition and nutrient cycling in ecosystems.
KW - Collembola
KW - biodiversity-ecosystem functioning
KW - climate change
KW - drought
KW - litter decomposition
KW - shrublands
KW - soil fauna
KW - Europe
KW - Phylogeny
KW - Biodiversity
KW - Animals
KW - Droughts
KW - Ecosystem
UR - http://www.mendeley.com/research/fast-attrition-springtail-communities-experimental-drought-richnessdecomposition-relationships-acros
U2 - 10.1111/gcb.14685
DO - 10.1111/gcb.14685
M3 - Article
C2 - 31206913
SN - 1354-1013
VL - 25
SP - 2727
EP - 2738
JO - Global Change Biology
JF - Global Change Biology
ER -