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Ecosystem effects of non-native earthworms in Mid-Atlantic deciduous forests

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Abstract

In many mid-Atlantic forests where both native and non-native earthworms exist, it is the non-native species that are the dominant component of the soil macrofauna. Few earthworm ecology studies, however, focus attention on these forest systems in order to determine the relative ecological roles and potential interactions of the native and non-native earthworms. In a series of field samplings and experimental manipulations we collected data on the effects of earthworms on below-and aboveground ecosystem processes. Earthworm abundance and the ecological processes measured were dynamic in space and time across the range of study sites. Leaf litter decay rates doubled at sites that had abundant non-native earthworms. Earthworms also altered the abundance of soil fungi, the activity of extracellular enzymes, soil respiration, and the growth of tree seedlings but the effects varied among sites depending on differences in land-use history and forest age. Red oak seedling growth was less at sites that had abundant earthworms but tulip poplar and red maple seedlings grew equally well with and without abundant earthworms. These preliminary results suggest that non-native earthworms have significant ecosystem effects, even in forests where native earthworms still occur. Land use history, however, plays an important role in determining what those effects will be, and these effects are likely to be dynamic, depending on the abundance of non-native earthworms.

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by grants from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA-CSREES NRI 2007-35320-18375, the National Science Foundation (EAR-0748442, EEC-0540832 ERC-MIRTHE), and Microsoft Research. We are most grateful to Scott Pitz and Jay O’Neill, who were instrumental in establishing the field manipulations and subsequent monitoring. Several undergraduates and SERC volunteers provided help in the field: Sarah Frank, Peter Houlihan, Helen Huang, Miriam Johnston, and Kerry Good. Alex Szalay designed and built the shocking equipment. We also thank two anonymous reviewers and Ronaldo Sousa for helpful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript.

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  1. Jaclyn Saunders

    Present address: Department of Oceanography, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, The Johns Hopkins University, 3400 N. Charles St, Baltimore, MD, 21216, USA

    Katalin Szlavecz & Lijun Xia

  2. Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, Edgewater, MD, USA

    Melissa McCormick, Jaclyn Saunders, Taylan Morcol & Dennis Whigham

  3. Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences and the Purdue Climate Change Research Center, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA

    Timothy Filley

  4. Hungarian Natural History Museum and Systematic Zoology Research Group of HAS, Budapest, Hungary

    Csaba Csuzdi

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  1. Katalin Szlavecz
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Correspondence to Katalin Szlavecz.

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Szlavecz, K., McCormick, M., Xia, L. et al. Ecosystem effects of non-native earthworms in Mid-Atlantic deciduous forests. Biol Invasions 13, 1165–1182 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-011-9959-0

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