Cargando…
Investigating the role of soil mesofauna abundance and biodiversity for organic matter breakdown in arable fields
Intact soil food webs are pivotal to maintaining essential soil functions, such as carbon recycling, sequestering, and biomass production. Although the functional role of micro‐ (e.g., bacteria and fungi) and macrofauna (e.g., earthworms) is comparatively well established, the importance of the meso...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
---|---|
Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
John Wiley and Sons Inc.
2021
|
Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9543280/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34878731 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ieam.4563 |
_version_ | 1784804338868158464 |
---|---|
author | Pamminger, Tobias Bottoms, Melanie Cunningham, Heidi Ellis, Sian Kabouw, Patrick Kimmel, Stefan Loutseti, Stefania Marx, Michael Thomas Nopper, Joachim Harald Schimera, Agnes Schulz, Lennart Sharples, Amanda Staab, Frank Ernst, Gregor |
author_facet | Pamminger, Tobias Bottoms, Melanie Cunningham, Heidi Ellis, Sian Kabouw, Patrick Kimmel, Stefan Loutseti, Stefania Marx, Michael Thomas Nopper, Joachim Harald Schimera, Agnes Schulz, Lennart Sharples, Amanda Staab, Frank Ernst, Gregor |
author_sort | Pamminger, Tobias |
collection | PubMed |
description | Intact soil food webs are pivotal to maintaining essential soil functions, such as carbon recycling, sequestering, and biomass production. Although the functional role of micro‐ (e.g., bacteria and fungi) and macrofauna (e.g., earthworms) is comparatively well established, the importance of the mesofauna community (e.g., abundance and diversity of Acari and Collembola) in maintaining soil functionality is less clear. We investigated this question in a six‐month field experiment in arable soil by actively manipulating mesofauna abundance and biodiversity through the application of two legacy insecticides (lindane and methamidophos) at sufficiently high doses to reduce mesofauna abundance (well above previously registered application rates; 2.5 and 7.5 kg a.s./ha for lindane, and 0.6 and 3 kg a.s./ha for methamidophos) and measure the impact on organic matter degradation. Our results demonstrate that both insecticides had reduced Collembola and Acari abundances by up to 80% over the study's six‐month duration. In addition, we observed less pronounced and more complex changes in mesofauna biodiversity over time. These included insecticide‐dependent temporal fluctuations (both reduction and increase) for different estimates (indices) of local (alpha)‐diversity over time and no lasting impact for most estimates after six months. Even at these exceptionally high field rates, Collembola and Acari diversity was observed to generally recover by six months. In contrast, considering organic matter breakdown, we found no evidence of a treatment‐related effect. These results suggest that organic matter breakdown in arable soils is likely driven by other trophic levels (e.g., microorganisms or earthworms) with only a limited influence of the mesofauna community. We discuss these findings with regard to their implications for our current understanding of soil food web function and future European soil risk assessments. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2022;18:1423–1433. © 2021 The Authors. Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society of Environmental Toxicology & Chemistry (SETAC). |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9543280 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | John Wiley and Sons Inc. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-95432802022-10-14 Investigating the role of soil mesofauna abundance and biodiversity for organic matter breakdown in arable fields Pamminger, Tobias Bottoms, Melanie Cunningham, Heidi Ellis, Sian Kabouw, Patrick Kimmel, Stefan Loutseti, Stefania Marx, Michael Thomas Nopper, Joachim Harald Schimera, Agnes Schulz, Lennart Sharples, Amanda Staab, Frank Ernst, Gregor Integr Environ Assess Manag Health & Ecological Risk Assessment Intact soil food webs are pivotal to maintaining essential soil functions, such as carbon recycling, sequestering, and biomass production. Although the functional role of micro‐ (e.g., bacteria and fungi) and macrofauna (e.g., earthworms) is comparatively well established, the importance of the mesofauna community (e.g., abundance and diversity of Acari and Collembola) in maintaining soil functionality is less clear. We investigated this question in a six‐month field experiment in arable soil by actively manipulating mesofauna abundance and biodiversity through the application of two legacy insecticides (lindane and methamidophos) at sufficiently high doses to reduce mesofauna abundance (well above previously registered application rates; 2.5 and 7.5 kg a.s./ha for lindane, and 0.6 and 3 kg a.s./ha for methamidophos) and measure the impact on organic matter degradation. Our results demonstrate that both insecticides had reduced Collembola and Acari abundances by up to 80% over the study's six‐month duration. In addition, we observed less pronounced and more complex changes in mesofauna biodiversity over time. These included insecticide‐dependent temporal fluctuations (both reduction and increase) for different estimates (indices) of local (alpha)‐diversity over time and no lasting impact for most estimates after six months. Even at these exceptionally high field rates, Collembola and Acari diversity was observed to generally recover by six months. In contrast, considering organic matter breakdown, we found no evidence of a treatment‐related effect. These results suggest that organic matter breakdown in arable soils is likely driven by other trophic levels (e.g., microorganisms or earthworms) with only a limited influence of the mesofauna community. We discuss these findings with regard to their implications for our current understanding of soil food web function and future European soil risk assessments. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2022;18:1423–1433. © 2021 The Authors. Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society of Environmental Toxicology & Chemistry (SETAC). John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2021-12-21 2022-09 /pmc/articles/PMC9543280/ /pubmed/34878731 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ieam.4563 Text en © 2021 The Authors. Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society of Environmental Toxicology & Chemistry (SETAC) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non‐commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made. |
spellingShingle | Health & Ecological Risk Assessment Pamminger, Tobias Bottoms, Melanie Cunningham, Heidi Ellis, Sian Kabouw, Patrick Kimmel, Stefan Loutseti, Stefania Marx, Michael Thomas Nopper, Joachim Harald Schimera, Agnes Schulz, Lennart Sharples, Amanda Staab, Frank Ernst, Gregor Investigating the role of soil mesofauna abundance and biodiversity for organic matter breakdown in arable fields |
title | Investigating the role of soil mesofauna abundance and biodiversity for organic matter breakdown in arable fields |
title_full | Investigating the role of soil mesofauna abundance and biodiversity for organic matter breakdown in arable fields |
title_fullStr | Investigating the role of soil mesofauna abundance and biodiversity for organic matter breakdown in arable fields |
title_full_unstemmed | Investigating the role of soil mesofauna abundance and biodiversity for organic matter breakdown in arable fields |
title_short | Investigating the role of soil mesofauna abundance and biodiversity for organic matter breakdown in arable fields |
title_sort | investigating the role of soil mesofauna abundance and biodiversity for organic matter breakdown in arable fields |
topic | Health & Ecological Risk Assessment |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9543280/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34878731 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ieam.4563 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT pammingertobias investigatingtheroleofsoilmesofaunaabundanceandbiodiversityfororganicmatterbreakdowninarablefields AT bottomsmelanie investigatingtheroleofsoilmesofaunaabundanceandbiodiversityfororganicmatterbreakdowninarablefields AT cunninghamheidi investigatingtheroleofsoilmesofaunaabundanceandbiodiversityfororganicmatterbreakdowninarablefields AT ellissian investigatingtheroleofsoilmesofaunaabundanceandbiodiversityfororganicmatterbreakdowninarablefields AT kabouwpatrick investigatingtheroleofsoilmesofaunaabundanceandbiodiversityfororganicmatterbreakdowninarablefields AT kimmelstefan investigatingtheroleofsoilmesofaunaabundanceandbiodiversityfororganicmatterbreakdowninarablefields AT loutsetistefania investigatingtheroleofsoilmesofaunaabundanceandbiodiversityfororganicmatterbreakdowninarablefields AT marxmichaelthomas investigatingtheroleofsoilmesofaunaabundanceandbiodiversityfororganicmatterbreakdowninarablefields AT nopperjoachimharald investigatingtheroleofsoilmesofaunaabundanceandbiodiversityfororganicmatterbreakdowninarablefields AT schimeraagnes investigatingtheroleofsoilmesofaunaabundanceandbiodiversityfororganicmatterbreakdowninarablefields AT schulzlennart investigatingtheroleofsoilmesofaunaabundanceandbiodiversityfororganicmatterbreakdowninarablefields AT sharplesamanda investigatingtheroleofsoilmesofaunaabundanceandbiodiversityfororganicmatterbreakdowninarablefields AT staabfrank investigatingtheroleofsoilmesofaunaabundanceandbiodiversityfororganicmatterbreakdowninarablefields AT ernstgregor investigatingtheroleofsoilmesofaunaabundanceandbiodiversityfororganicmatterbreakdowninarablefields |