Abstract
Disturbances are intrinsic drivers of structure and function in ecosystems, hence predicting their effects in forest ecosystems is essential for forest conservation and/or management practices. Yet, knowledge regarding belowground impacts of disturbance events still remains little understood and can greatly vary by taxonomic and functional identity, disturbance type and local environmental conditions. To address this gap in knowledge, we conducted a survey of soil-dwelling Protura, across forests subjected to different disturbance regimes (i.e. windstorms, insect pest outbreaks and clear-cut logging). We expected that the soil proturan assemblages would differ among disturbance regimes. We also hypothesized that these differences would be driven primarily by variation in soil physicochemical properties thus the impacts of forest disturbances would be indirect and related to changes in food resources. To verify that sampling included two geographically distant subalpine glacial lake catchments that differed in underlying geology, each having four different types of forest disturbance, i.e. control, bark beetle outbreak (BB), windthrow + BB (wind + BB) and clear-cut. As expected, forest disturbance had negative effects on proturan diversity and abundance, with multiple disturbances having the greatest impacts. However, differences in edaphic factors constituted a stronger driver of variability in distribution and abundance of proturans assemblages. These results imply that soil biogeochemistry and resource availability can have much stronger effects on proturan assemblages than forest disturbances.
Highlights
Disturbances, natural and anthropogenic, are a common and intrinsic element of temperate forest ecosystems[1] and play an important role in forest dynamics[2]
The two-tailed Mann-Whitney U- test demonstrated that the PL soils had significantly lower values of soil moisture (U = 0.0, z = −2.31, N = 4, p = 0.03) and dissolved nitrogen (DN) concentrations (U = 0.0, z = −2.31, N = 4, p = 0.03) but higher levels of dissolved phosphorus (TPH2O) (U = 0.50, z = −2.17, N = 4, p = 0.03) compare to the CL soils
No significant differences in mean ranks were recorded among the forest stands with various disturbance regimes for the dissolved organic carbon (DOC), dissolved nitrogen (DN), total dissolved phosphorus (TPH2O), total exchangeable capacity cation exchange capacity (CEC), base saturation (BS), exchangeable aluminum (Al3+ex) and hydrogen (H+ex) (Kruskal-Wallis one way ANOVA:H (3, N = 8), p > 0.05 in all cases)
Summary
Disturbances, natural and anthropogenic, are a common and intrinsic element of temperate forest ecosystems[1] and play an important role in forest dynamics[2]. As a result, growing disturbance risk necessitates greater attention to the management of the forest ecosystem[4] Disturbance events such as insect outbreaks, windstorms and forest management practices applied after natural disturbances can strongly modulate forest structure, functioning and biodiversity[5,6], and affect the natural, beneficial roles played by forests. In this study, embedded in the extensive research programme “Effect of natural dieback of mountain spruce forests on microclimate, chemistry, and biodiversity of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems” (e.g.26), we analysed proturan assemblages from the soils of two subalpine lake catchments in the Bohemian Forest, Czech Republic This mountainous region comprises one of the largest stands of natural and semi-natural forests in Central Europe, and has a recent history of bark beetle outbreaks followed by and strong windstorms[13]. A long-term ecological research program was developed and conducted in the area since 1984, with particular focus on two subalpine lake catchments – the Čertovo and Plešné Lakes (Fig. 1) – which differ in terms of underlying bedrock[27]
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