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Fine sediment on leaves: shredder removal of sediment does not enhance fungal colonisation

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Abstract

Inorganic fine sediments are easily carried into streams and rivers from disturbed land. These sediments can affect the stream biota, including detritivorous invertebrates (shredders) and impair ecosystem functions, such as leaf litter decomposition. We hypothesized that fine sediment (kaolin) deposited on leaves would reduce or suppress fungal development, reducing decomposition rates of leaves. Moreover, we predicted that shredders would act as ecosystem engineers by perturbing sediment deposition, reducing its impact on decomposition and fungi. We used a fully crossed experimental design of sediment addition (control, 400 mg L−1) and shredders (none, Gammarus, Potamophylax) in laboratory aquaria. Leaf mass loss, suspended solids, microbial respiration, fungal biomass and spore production were measured. Sediment addition had no significant effects on the leaf mass remaining nor on shredders’ consumption rates. However, sediment slightly reduced fungal assemblage richness and the sporulation rate of three fungal species. The presence of shredders substantially increased the resuspension of fine sediments (>300%), resulting in higher suspended loads. However, the action of shredders did not have a significant effect on fungal biomass nor on leaf mass loss. Even if shredders did not enhance fungal colonisation, they affected the settlement of fine sediment, serving as allogenic engineers. Our study suggests that concentrations of fine sediment of 400 mg L−1 with short exposure times (192 h) can have some effect on leaf decomposition.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to D. Lambrigot and S. Lamothe for their help with the field work and with the laboratory analyses, and to M.-H. O’Donoghue for her help with the bibliographic research. We are indebted to Mr. Dubillot who provided us the sediment. We thank E. Mas and three anonymous reviewers for comments on an earlier version of the manuscript. This study was made possible thanks to a grant from the University Paul Sabatier Toulouse 3 to JR as a sabbatical visitor, and funding for the InBioProcess project of the ANR Biodiversity programme (ANR-06-BDIV-007).

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  1. Isis Sanpera-Calbet

    Present address: Departament d’Ecologia, Facultat de Biologia, Universitat de Barcelona, Avinguda Diagonal, 643, 08028, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Université de Toulouse, UPS, INPT, EcoLab, Université Paul Sabatier, Bâtiment 4R1, 31062, Toulouse, France

    Isis Sanpera-Calbet & Eric Chauvet

  2. CNRS, EcoLab, 31062, Toulouse, France

    Isis Sanpera-Calbet & Eric Chauvet

  3. Department of Forest Sciences, University of British Columbia, 3041-2424 Main Mall, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z4, Canada

    John S. Richardson

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  1. Isis Sanpera-Calbet
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  2. Eric Chauvet
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  3. John S. Richardson
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Correspondence to Isis Sanpera-Calbet.

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Table 1 List of aquatic hyphomycete species found on alder leaves in the six treatments
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Sanpera-Calbet, I., Chauvet, E. & Richardson, J.S. Fine sediment on leaves: shredder removal of sediment does not enhance fungal colonisation. Aquat Sci 74, 527–538 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00027-011-0245-0

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