Seasonal changes in the diversity and composition of the litter fauna in native forests and rubber plantations

Richard T. Corlett,Kingsly C. Beng,Kyle W. Tomlinson

doi:10.1038/s41598-018-28603-7

Richard T. Corlett, Kingsly C. Beng + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-28603-7

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Journal: Scientific Reports	Publication Date: Jul 6, 2018
Citations: 7	License type: open-access

Affiliation: Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden

Abstract

The litter layer of tropical forests supports a significant fraction of total arthropod diversity and decomposition of this layer is the main pathway by which nutrients are returned to the soil and CO2 to the atmosphere. Conversion of tropical forests to agriculture is the main threat to biodiversity and ecosystem services, and understanding effects on the litter layer is important for understanding and mitigating these impacts. We used high through-put DNA sequencing of the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) gene to assess seasonal changes in the diversity and composition of the litter fauna at five matched pairs of native forests and rubber plantations in tropical SW China every month for a year, and measured the environmental factors expected to drive intra-annual variation. Forests and rubber had very different arthropod assemblages throughout the year, with forests more species-rich than rubber in all months except February. Very high rates of intra-annual turnover in species composition in both forests and rubber were associated with seasonality in environmental variables, with the influence of particular variables differing among taxa. Tropical arthropods are very sensitive to seasonality and sampling at only one time of the year captures only a subset of the total community.

Highlights

Tropical forests are believed to support more than half of all terrestrial plant and animal species[1], and are a crucial component of the global carbon cycle, accounting for 25% of the terrestrial carbon pool and one-third of net primary production[2]
We have previously applied this technique in the fragmented forest landscape of tropical southwest China to compare the litter arthropod fauna in native forests with that in adjacent plantations of tea and rubber, showing a decline in the diversity of most taxonomic groups and large changes in species composition following forest conversion[10]
We address four main questions: (i) Does arthropod species composition, richness and turnover show significant intra-annual variability? (ii) Do these patterns of intra-annual variability differ among arthropod taxa and between forest and rubber? (iii) Which environmental variables are most strongly associated with the temporal patterns of arthropod richness and composition? (iv) How many times per year is it necessary to sample in order to capture temporal variation in species composition in a seasonal tropical climate?

Summary

Introduction

Tropical forests are believed to support more than half of all terrestrial plant and animal species[1], and are a crucial component of the global carbon cycle, accounting for 25% of the terrestrial carbon pool and one-third of net primary production[2] Their on-going conversion to agricultural monocultures threatens both biodiversity and carbon stocks on a global scale. We have previously applied this technique in the fragmented forest landscape of tropical southwest China to compare the litter arthropod fauna in native forests with that in adjacent plantations of tea and rubber, showing a decline in the diversity of most taxonomic groups and large changes in species composition following forest conversion[10].

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