Vegetation shapes aboveground invertebrate communities more than soil properties and pollution: a preliminary investigation on a metal-contaminated site

Shinji Ozaki,Clémentine Fritsch,Francis Raoul,Renaud Scheifler,Thierry Cornier,Frédéric Mora

doi:10.1007/s11356-021-15811-4

Abstract

Pollution with trace metals (TM) has been shown to affect diversity and/or composition of plant and animal communities. While ecotoxicological studies have estimated the impact of TM contamination on plant and animal communities separately, ecological studies have widely demonstrated that vegetation is an important factor shaping invertebrate communities. It is supposed that changes in invertebrate communities under TM contamination would be explained by both direct impact of TM on invertebrate organisms and indirect effects due to changes in plant communities. However, no study has clearly investigated which would more importantly shape invertebrate communities under TM contamination. Here, we hypothesized that invertebrate communities under TM contamination would be affected more importantly by plant communities which constitute their habitat and/or food than by direct impact of TM. Our analysis showed that diversity and community identity of flying invertebrates were explained only by plant diversity which was not affected by TM contamination. Diversity of ground-dwelling (GD) invertebrates in spring was explained more importantly by plant diversity (27% of variation) than by soil characteristics including TM concentrations (8%), whereas their community identity was evenly explained by plant diversity and soil characteristics (2-7%). In autumn, diversity of GD invertebrates was only explained by plant diversity (12%), and their identity was only explained by soil characteristics (8%). We conclude that vegetation shapes invertebrate communities more importantly than direct effects of TM on invertebrates. Vegetation should be taken into account when addressing the impacts of environmental contamination on animal communities.

Highlights

Trace metals (TM) are naturally occurring elements, whose concentrations in the environment can be dramatically increased by various anthropogenic activities, which can deeply impact wildlife (Eisler, 2000; Nordberg et al, 2014)
Beta diversity was significantly but weakly explained by soil properties: replacement of tree and herbaceous strata was explained by pH (R2adj = 0.052 and 0.030, respectively), whereas replacement of shrub stratum was explained by Pb
Our results demonstrate that both alpha and beta diversity of GD invertebrate communities are more explained by plant diversity than by soil TM contamination or some soil properties

Summary

Introduction

Trace metals (TM) are naturally occurring elements, whose concentrations in the environment can be dramatically increased by various anthropogenic activities, which can deeply impact wildlife (Eisler, 2000; Nordberg et al, 2014). Technical and regulatory improvements have considerably reduced the emission of some TM, legacy TM contamination persists in nature because TM are non-degradable chemicals. TM persist in nature and continue to affect ecosystems (EMEP, 2013). Diversity indices have commonly been used as indicators for estimating pollutants’ effects on plants and invertebrates (Zvereva et al, 2008; Zvereva and Kozlov, 2012, 2010). It has been frequently reported that diversity of plants was negatively affected by soil TM contamination (Bes et al, 2010; Dazy et al, 2009; Ginocchio, 2000; Vidic et al, 2006). Change in the composition of plant community (i.e. change in identities and/or abundances of plant species in a community) along a gradient of TM soil contamination has been reported (Strandberg et al, 2006)

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