Abstract
Soil processes such as decomposition are mainly performed by soil biota. Although, soils worldwide are extremely biodiverse, the relationship between decomposers (fauna and microorganisms) and ecosystem function is poorly understood. Collembola are abundant and ubiquitous microarthropods that are found in terrestrial ecosystems. They, directly or indirectly, impact the amount of biomass and influence the activity of microbial communities. However, despite the functional role they play in belowground food webs, the interactions between natural assemblages of soil microbes and Collembola receive little attention. This study, conducted in microcosm conditions, examines the effects of two distinct natural assemblages of functional groups of Collembola (ep- and euedaphic) upon microbial communities using PLFA markers and their associated soil functions (e.g., enzymatic activities and C mineralization rate) over a two-month period. Our principal objective was to determine whether different functional groups of Collembola had varying effects on microbial soil community abundance, structure and activity, resulting in potentially important effects on ecosystem processes. Our findings show that the interactions of the functional groups of Collembola with microbial communities vary significantly whether they are alone or combined. A distinct response in the composition of the microbial communities was found at the end of the 2-month period. The communities were significantly different from each other in terms of PLFA marker composition. We found that the epedaphic species were related to and promoted Gram+ bacteria whereas euedaphic species were related to Gram- bacterial markers. This had further repercussions on soil function, such as nutrient recycling. Combining both functional groups did not lead to a complementary effect on soil microbial properties, with a drastically different outcome between the first and the second month of the experiment. Additional research dealing with the interactions between decomposers using natural assemblages will help to predict the functional outcomes of soil biota structure and composition.
Highlights
Decomposition, with primary production, is one of the most important ecosystem functions found in soil
We found that the epedaphic species were related to and promoted Gram+ bacteria whereas euedaphic species were related to Gram- bacterial markers
We used the bacterial acid methyl ester (BAME) 26 Mix of Sigma-Aldritch as a reference and further in the analyses only considered those identified markers and did not take into account un-recognized peaks, as they accounted for
Summary
Decomposition, with primary production, is one of the most important ecosystem functions found in soil. ∼90% of the terrestrial net primary production (NPP) enters the soil food web to be consumed and decomposed into mineral forms and eventually reabsorbed by plants. Decomposition in terrestrial ecosystems and nutrient cycling are primarily regulated by soil micro-organisms (fungi and bacteria). Most nutrient mineralization is governed directly by the activities of bacteria and fungi, this mineralization process is regulated by interactions with soil fauna (Bardgett and Cook, 1998; Kaneko et al, 1998; Bardgett and Shine, 1999; Mikola et al, 2002; Tiunov and Scheu, 2005; Lenoir et al, 2007; Chauvat et al, 2014). Several studies showed that soil food web properties strongly impact organic matter recycling and, affect the quality and quantity of the nutrients available to plants (Heemsbergen et al, 2004), see Whalen et al (2013) for a complete review on N cycling. Other studies highlighted links between the structure and composition of soil fauna and several enzymatic activities (Sauvadet et al, 2017)
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