Differential utilization of root-derived carbon among collembolan species

Abstract

We conducted a 13CO2 pulse-labeling experiment to trace the transfer of recently assimilated carbon (C) from woody plants to soil microarthropods. We investigated the utilization of root-derived C for six species of Collembola that differ in terms of their morphological traits and vertical distributions. Although species living in deeper soil layers, such as humus and mineral soil, have traditionally been considered to have close relationships with plant roots, we showed that even species that inhabit the litter layer utilized root-derived C. Additionally, we found interspecific differences in root-derived C utilization among species living in the same soil layer. This result suggests that collembolan species exhibiting the same vertical distribution have species-specific functional roles in soil processes, which contrasts with the previously accepted view that they are relatively redundant in terms of their belowground functions related to their dietary traits.