Abstract
Understanding how different taxa respond to global warming is essential for predicting future changes and elaborating strategies to buffer them. Tardigrades are well known for their ability to survive environmental stressors, such as drying and freezing, by undergoing cryptobiosis and rapidly recovering their metabolic function after stressors cease. Determining the extent to which animals that undergo cryptobiosis are affected by environmental warming will help to understand the real magnitude climate change will have on these organisms. Here, we report on the responses of tardigrades within a five‐year‐long, field‐based artificial warming experiment, which consisted of 12 open‐top chambers heated to simulate the projected effects of global warming (ranging from 0 to 5.5°C above ambient temperature) in a temperate deciduous forest of North Carolina (USA). To elucidate the effects of warming on the tardigrade community inhabiting the soil litter, three community diversity indices (abundance, species richness, and Shannon diversity) and the abundance of the three most abundant species (Diphascon pingue, Adropion scoticum, and Mesobiotus sp.) were determined. Their relationships with air temperature, soil moisture, and the interaction between air temperature and soil moisture were tested using Bayesian generalized linear mixed models. Despite observed negative effects of warming on other ground invertebrates in previous studies at this site, long‐term warming did not affect the abundance, richness, or diversity of tardigrades in this experiment. These results are in line with previous experimental studies, indicating that tardigrades may not be directly affected by ongoing global warming, possibly due to their thermotolerance and cryptobiotic abilities to avoid negative effects of stressful temperatures, and the buffering effect on temperature of the soil litter substrate.
Highlights
Soil organisms such as nematodes, tardigrades, and rotifers—a microfauna that needs a film of water surrounding the body to be active— are generally abundant in most terrestrial biomes
Most of the studies concerning the effect of experimental warming on this type of fauna are mainly focused on Antarctic nematode communities (e.g. Andriuzzi et al, 2018; Convey & Wynn- Williams, 2002; Newsham et al, 2020; Prather et al, 2019; Simmons et al, 2009), and contrasting results on their community have been found according to species and temperature increase
We found that 5 years of experimental warming had no detectable effect on the tardigrade community inhabiting the soil litter
Summary
Soil organisms such as nematodes, tardigrades, and rotifers—a microfauna that needs a film of water surrounding the body to be active— are generally abundant in most terrestrial biomes.
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