Abstract
To understand the overwhelming species richness in soil the focus of attention has traditionally been on local soil conditions, such as physical and chemical characteristics. Regional factors like landscape history have been largely ignored. The aim of our study was to assess the importance of geological site age and local site conditions on oribatid mite species richness in undisturbed forest soils. We wanted to evaluate the processes underlying spatial changes in oribatid species richness at the regional level. We selected 41 sites across the Netherlands with different forest types, located on soils with varying levels of humidity and nutrient richness. The selected sites formed a clear spatiotemporal gradient in geological site age, ranging from Holocene sites along the west coast and rivers towards Pleistocene sites in the east of the country. Five samples were collected at each site. Oribatid mites were counted and identified to the species level. In total 145 oribatid mite species were recorded. We observed that oribatid mite species richness across sites was positively affected by site age. Soil nutrient status, water availability, soil type, or forest vegetation type had rather a local modulating effect on soil mite diversity. The increase in species diversity with geological site age was mainly due to an increase in sexually-reproducing species, with an apparent high competitive ability, but lower reproduction rate. Our results suggest that spatial patterns of soil animal community diversity and composition can be significantly determined by geologic age at the regional level.
References
Adams BJ, Bardgett RD, Ayres E, Wall DH, Aislabie J, Bamforth S, Bargagli R, Cary C, Cavacini P, Connell L, Convey P, Fell JW, Frati F, Hogg ID, Newsham KK, O’Donnell A, Russell N, Seppelt RD, Stevens MI (2006) Diversity and distribution of Victoria Land biota. Soil Biol Biochem 38:3003–3018
Andrew NR, Rodgerson L, Dunlop M (2003) Variation in invertebrate–bryophyte community structure at different spatial scales along altitudinal gradients. J Biogeogr 30:731–746
Bardgett RD (2002) Causes and consequences of biological diversity in soil. Zoology 105:367–374
Bardgett RD (2005) The biology of soil: a community and ecosystem approach. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Berg MP (2012) Patterns of biodiversity of fine and small spatial scales. In: Wall DH, Bardgett RD, Behan-Pellletier VB, Herrick JE, Jones H, Ritz K, Six J, Strong DR, van der Putten HW (eds) Soil Ecology and Ecosystem services. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 120–129
Berg MP, Bengtsson J (2007) Temporal and spatial variability in soil food web structure. Oikos 116:1789–1804
Biederman LA, Boutton TW (2010) Spatial variation in biodiversity and trophic structure of soil nematode communities in a subtropical savanna parkland: responses to woody plant encroachment. Appl Soil Ecol 46:168–176
Borcard D, Legendre P (2002) All-scale spatial analysis of ecological data by means of principal coordinates of neighbour matrices. Ecol Model 153:51–68
Borcard D, Legendre P, Avois-Jacquet C, Tuomisto H (2004) Dissecting the spatial structure of ecological data at multiple scales. Ecology 85:1826–1832
Borges PAV, Brown VK (1999) Effect of island geological age on the arthropod species richness of Azorean pastures. Biol J Linn Soc 66:373–410
Braun-Blanquet J (1964) Pflanzensoziologie. Springer, Wien
Cadotte MW, Mai DV, Jantz S, Collins MD, Keele M, Drake JA (2006) On testing the colonisation-competition trade-off in a multispecies assemblage. Am Nat 168:704–709
Caruso T, Taormina M, Migliorini M (2012) Relative role of deterministic and stochastic determinants of soil animal community: a spatially explicit analysis of oribatid mites. J Anim Ecol 81:214–221
Cianciolo JM (2009) Asexual species of oribatid mites do not have a local-scale colonization advantage over sexual species. Evol Ecol Res 11:43–55
Cianciolo JM, Norton RA (2006) The ecological distribution of reproductive mode in oribatid mites, as related to biological complexity. Exp Appl Acarol 40:1–25
Colwell RK (2004) Estimates: statistical estimation of species richness and shared species from samples, Version 7, User’s Guide and application
Colwell RK, Coddington JA (1995) Estimating terrestrial biodiversity through extrapolation. In: Hawksworth DL (ed) Biodiversity measurement and estimation. Chapman and Hall, London, pp 101–118
Coulson SJ, Hodkinson ID, Webb NR (2003) Aerial dispersal of invertebrates over a High Arctic glacier foreland: Midtre Lovénbreen, Svalbard. Polar Biol 26:530–537
Cressie N (1991) Statistics for Spatial Data. John Wiley and Sons, New York
Decaëns T (2010) Macroecological patterns in soil communities. Glob Ecol Biogeogr 19:287–302
Dormann FC, McPherson JM, Araújo MB, Bivand R, Bolliger J, Carl G, Davies RG, Hirzel A, Jetz W, Kissling WD, Kühn I, Ohlemüller R (2007) Methods to account for spatial autocorrelation in the analysis of species distributional data: a review. Ecography 30:609–628
Dunger W, Wanner M, Hauser H, Hohberg K, Schulz HJ, Schwalbe T, Seifert B, Vogel J, Voigtlander K, Zimdars B, Zulka KP (2001) Development of soil fauna at mine sites during 46 years after afforestation. Pedobiologia 45:243–271
Ellenberg H (1979) Zeigerwerte der Gefäßpflanzen Mitteleuropas. (2. Aufl.). Scripta Geobotanica 9. Goeltze, Goettingen
Ettema CH, Wardle DA (2002) Spatial soil ecology. Trends Ecol Evol 17:177–183
Fattorini S (2010) The influence of geographical and ecological factors on island beta diversity patterns. J Biogeogr 37:1061–1070
Gaston KJ (2000) Global patterns in biodiversity. Nature 405:202–227
Gergócs V, Hufnagel L (2009) Application of Oribatid mites as indicators. Appl Ecol Environ Res 7:79–98
Gisin H (1960) Collembolenfauna Europas. Museum d’Histoire Naturelle, Genève
Gorshkov VV, Bakkal IJ, Stavrova NI (1996) Post fire recovery of soil litter in Scots pine forests in two different regions of boreal zone. Silva Fenn 30:209–219
Haggett RJ (1998) Soil chronosequences, soil development, and soil evolution: a critical review. Catena 32:155–172
Hågvar S, Solhoy T, Mong CE (2009) Primary succession of soil mites (Acari) in a Norwegian glacier foreland, with emphasis on oribatid species. Arct Antarct Alp Res 41:219–227
Hansen RA (2000) Effects of habitat complexity and composition on a diverse litter microarthropod assemblage. Ecology 81:1120–1132
Hansen RA, Coleman DC (1998) Litter complexity and composition are determinants of the diversity and species composition of oribatid mites (Acari: Oribatida) in litterbags. Appl Soil Ecol 9:17–23
Heijboer D (2002) Klimaatlas van Nederland: de normaalperiode 1971–2000. Koninklijk Nederlands Meteorologisch Instituut, De Bilt
Hodkinson ID, Coulson SJ, Webb NR (2004) Invertebrate community assembly along proglacial chronosequences in the high Arctic. J Anim Ecol 73:556–568
Huston MA (1999) Local processes and regional patterns: appropriate scales for understanding variation in the diversity of plants and animals. Oikos 86:393–401
Kallimanis AS, Argyropoulou MD, Sgardelis SP (2002) Two scale patterns of spatial distribution of oribatid mites (Acari, Cryptostigmata) in a Greek mountain. Pedobiologia 46:513–525
Kappes H, Jabin M, Kulfan J, Zach P, Topp W (2009) Spatial patterns of litter-dwelling taxa in relation to the amounts of coarse woody debris in European temperate deciduous forests. For Ecol Manag 257:1255–1260
Kardol P, Newton JS, Bezemer TM, Maraun M, van der Putten WH (2009) Contrasting diversity patterns of soil mites and nematodes in secondary succession. Acta Oecol 35:603–609
Kaufmann R, Fuchs M, Gosterxeier N (2002) The Soil Fauna of an Alpine Glacier Foreland: Colonization and Succession. Arct Antarct Alp Res 34:242–250
Keating KA, Quinn JF (1998) Estimating species richness: the Michaelis-Menten model revisited. Oikos 81:411–416
Khalil MA, Janssens TKS, Berg MP, van Straalen NM (2009) Identification of metal-responsive oribatid mites in a comparative survey of polluted soils. Pedobiologia 52:207–221
Kneitel JM, Chase JM (2004) Trade-offs in community ecology: linking spatial scales and species coexistence. Ecol Lett 7:69–80
Krab EJ, Orsprong H, Berg MP, Cornelissen JHC (2010) Turning northern peatlands upside down: disentangling microclimate and substrate quality effects on vertical distribution of Collembola. Funct Ecol 24:1362–1369
Krantz GW, Walter DE (2009) A Manual of Acarology, 3rd edn. Texas Technical University Press, Austin
Krivolutsky DA (ed) (1995) Oribatid mites. Nauka, Moscow (in Russian)
Krivolutsky DA, Lebedeva NV (2004) Oribatid mites (Oribatei, Acariformes) in bird feathers: non-passerines. Acta Zool Lith 14:26–47
Lehmitz R, Russell D, Hohberg K, Christian A, Xylander WER (2011) Wind dispersal of oribatid mites as a mode of migration. Pedobiologia 54:201–207
Lehmitz R, Russell D, Hohberg K, Christian A, Xylander WER (2012) Active dispersal of oribatid mites into young soils. Appl Soil Ecol 55:10–19
Leibold MA, Holyoak M, Mouquet N, Amarasekare P, Chase JM, Hoopes MF, Holt RD, Shurin JB, Law R, Tilman D, Loreau M, Gonzales A (2004) The metacommunity concept: a framework for multi-scale community ecology. Ecol Lett 7:601–613
Lindberg N, Persson T (2004) Effects of long-term nutrient fertilisation and irrigation on the microarthropod community in a boreal Norway spruce stand. Forest Ecol Manag 188:125–135
Lindo Z, Winchester NN (2007) Local-regional boundary shifts in oribatid mite (Acari: Oribatida) communities: species-area relationships in arboreal habitat islands of a coastal temperate rain forest, Vancouver Island, Canada. J Biogeogr 34:1611–1612
Lindo Z, Winchester NN (2008) Scale dependent diversity patterns in arboreal and terrestrial oribatid mite (Acari: Oribatida) communities. Ecography 31:53–60
Lindo Z, Winchester N (2009) Spatial and environmental factors contributing to patterns in arboreal and terrestrial oribatid mite diversity across spatial scales. Oecologia 160:817–825
Lindroth CHH, Andersson H, Bödvarsson A, Richter SH (1973) Surtsey Iceland. The development of a new fauna 1963–70: terrestrial invertebrates. Entom Scand 5:1–280
MapInfo Corp (2006) MapInfo professional for Windows, version 8.5.1. Troy, USA
Maraun M, Scheu S (2000) The structure of oribatid mite communities (Acari, Oribatida): patterns, mechanisms and implications for future research. Ecography 23:374–383
Maraun M, Schatz H, Scheu S (2007) Awesome or ordinary? Global diversity patterns of oribatid mites. Ecography 30:209–216
Meyer P, Schmidt M (2011) Accumulation of dead wood in abandoned beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) forests in northwestern Germany. Forest Ecol Manag 261:342–352
Mulder C, van Wijnen HJ, van Wezel AP (2005) Numerical abundance and biodiversity of below-ground taxocenes along a pH gradient across the Netherlands. J Biogeogr 32:1775–1790
Norton RA, Palmer SC (1991) The distribution, mechanisms, and evolutionary significance of parthenogenesis in oribatid mites. In: Schuster R, Murphy PW (eds) The Acari: Reproduction. Development and Life-History Strategies, Chapman and Hall, London, pp 107–136
Pickett STA (1989) Space-for-time substitution as an alternative to long-term studies. In: Likens GE (ed) Long-term Studies in Ecology: Approaches and Alternatives. Springer, New York, pp 110–135
Pugh PJA (2003) Have mites (Acarina: Arachnida) colonised Antarctica and the islands of the Southern ocean via air currents? Polar Res 39:239–244
Rantalainen ML, Fritze H, Haimi J, Pennanen T, Setala H (2005) Species richness and food web structure of soil decomposer community as affected by the size of habitat fragment and habitat corridors. Glob Change Biol 11:1614–1627
Schneider K, Migge S, Norton RA, Scheu S, Langel R, Reineking A, Maraun M (2004) Trophic niche differentiation in soil microarthropods (Oribatida, Acari): Evidence from stable isotope ratios (15N/14N). Soil Biol Biochem 36:1769–1774
Setälä H, Berg MP, Jones TH (2005) Trophic structure and functional redundancy in soil communities. In: Bardgett RD, Usher MB, Hopkins DW (eds) Biological diversity and function in soils. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 236–249
Starzomski BM, Parker RL, Srivastava DS (2008) On the relationship between regional and local species richness: a test of saturation theory. Ecology 89:1921–1930
StatSoft Inc (2003) STATISTICA (data analysis software system), version 6.1. StatSoft Inc, Tulsa, OK, USA
Stropp J, ter Steege H, Malhi Y (2009) Disentangling regional and local tree diversity in the Amazon. Ecography 32:46–54
Subias LS (2011) Listado sistemático, sinonímico y biogeográfico de los Ácaros Oribátidos (Acariformes: Oribatida) del mundo. Graellsia, 60:3–305 (updated in February 2011)
Van der Werf S (1991) Bosgemeenschappen. Natuurbeheer in Nederland. Deel 5. Pudoc Publishers, Wageningen
Van Straalen NM, Rijninks PC (1982) The efficiency of Tullgren apparatus with respect to interpreting seasonal changes in age structure of soil arthropod populations. Pedobiologia 24:197–209
Vidic NJ (1998) Soil-age relationships and correlations: comparison of chronosequences in the Ljubljana Basin, Slovenia and USA. Catena 34:113–129
Wiens JJ, Donoghue MJ (2004) Historical biogeography, ecology and species richness. Trends Ecol Evol 19:639–644
Zaitsev AS, Berg MP (2001) Some preliminary distribution maps of oribatid mites of the Netherlands (Acari, Oribatida). Ned Faunist Mededel 15:79–101
Zaitsev AS, Wolters V (2006) Geographic determinants of oribatid mite communities structure and diversity across Europe: a longitudinal perspective. Eur J Soil Biol 42:358–361
Zaitsev AS, Wolters V, Waldhardt R, Dauber J (2006) Long-term succession of oribatid mites after conversion of croplands to grasslands. Appl Soil Ecol 33:230–239
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Prof. Dr. D. Krivolutsky (†) and Dr. H. Siepel for checking the taxonomic status of some specimens. We are indebted to S. C. Verhoef, R. Verweij and H. R. Zoomer for their valuable support during the field sampling and laboratory work. Prof. V. Wolters (Justus-Liebig-University, Giessen, Germany) and Dr. R. G. Kuperman (U.S. Army Edgewood Chemical Biological Center, USA) provided valuable comments during the manuscript preparation. A. Zaitsev’s stay in the Netherlands was financially supported by a fellowship of the Faculty of Earth and Life Sciences, VU University, Amsterdam. This publication represents a component of A. Zaitsev’s doctoral thesis at the Justus-Liebig-University Giessen.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Electronic supplementary material
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Zaitsev, A.S., van Straalen, N.M. & Berg, M.P. Landscape geological age explains large scale spatial trends in oribatid mite diversity. Landscape Ecol 28, 285–296 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-012-9834-0
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-012-9834-0