TY - JOUR
T1 - Ecological maturity and stability of nematode communities in response to precipitation manipulations in grasslands
AU - Ankrom, Katharine E.
AU - Franco, André L.C.
AU - Fonte, Steven J.
AU - Gherardi, Laureano A.
AU - de Tomasel, Cecilia Milano
AU - Wepking, Carl
AU - Guan, Pingting
AU - Cui, Shuyan
AU - Sala, Osvaldo E.
AU - Wall, Diana H.
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under grant number DEB-1456631 and DEB-1456597 to Diana H. Wall and Osvaldo E. Sala. This work was supported by funding from the National Science Foundation for the Jornada Basin Long-Term Ecological Research Program DEB 2025166. We thank the staff at the Jornada Basin LTER, Semi-arid Grassland Research Center, Central Plains Experimental Range, and Konza Prairie Biological Station for site-based assistance.
Funding Information:
This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under grant number DEB-1456631 and DEB-1456597 to Diana H. Wall and Osvaldo E. Sala. This work was supported by funding from the National Science Foundation for the Jornada Basin Long-Term Ecological Research Program DEB 2025166 . We thank the staff at the Jornada Basin LTER, Semi-arid Grassland Research Center, Central Plains Experimental Range, and Konza Prairie Biological Station for site-based assistance.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Elsevier B.V.
PY - 2022/2
Y1 - 2022/2
N2 - Climate change is predicted to cause alterations in precipitation patterns in grasslands around the globe. The implications of these changes for soil biota and multiple key ecosystem functions that they regulate in grasslands is little known. We used soil nematodes as biological indicators in grassland ecosystems experiencing large shifts in precipitation in an arid, semiarid, and mesic grasslands. By calculating the nematode plant parasite index, maturity index, and its extensions: the enrichment, basal, channel, and structure index, we assessed grassland ecosystem response to five levels of manipulated precipitation over the course of two years. Nematode community structure described by these indices was sensitive enough to reflect community changes from the altered precipitation treatments and responded uniquely at each of the three sites. With increasing precipitation, nematode communities at the arid site became more enriched in species and switched to a more fungal-dominated decomposition pathway. The semiarid site showed a decline in nematode maturity, structure, and fungally dominated decomposition, but greater levels of enrichment, basal resources, and herbivory. In the mesic site increasing precipitation led to a nematode community with greater maturity and structure and shifted toward a fungal decomposition channel that also reflected a lower level of enrichment and plant parasites. We performed an indicator analysis to identify nematode genera representative of each grassland site and precipitation level. Nematode indicator composition was found to be significantly affected by the levels of applied precipitation and across sites, highlighting specific genera that may be affected by future precipitation regimes such as Eucephalobus in the arid site or Trichodorus from the mesic site. Nematode community analysis allowed for the detection of strong influences on the soil food web caused from extreme and moderate precipitation manipulations. This finding stresses the need for more genera level studies to be done to reflect specific ecosystem responses to climate change as well as the need for more cross site studies as site-specific differences must be accounted for ecological interpretations.
AB - Climate change is predicted to cause alterations in precipitation patterns in grasslands around the globe. The implications of these changes for soil biota and multiple key ecosystem functions that they regulate in grasslands is little known. We used soil nematodes as biological indicators in grassland ecosystems experiencing large shifts in precipitation in an arid, semiarid, and mesic grasslands. By calculating the nematode plant parasite index, maturity index, and its extensions: the enrichment, basal, channel, and structure index, we assessed grassland ecosystem response to five levels of manipulated precipitation over the course of two years. Nematode community structure described by these indices was sensitive enough to reflect community changes from the altered precipitation treatments and responded uniquely at each of the three sites. With increasing precipitation, nematode communities at the arid site became more enriched in species and switched to a more fungal-dominated decomposition pathway. The semiarid site showed a decline in nematode maturity, structure, and fungally dominated decomposition, but greater levels of enrichment, basal resources, and herbivory. In the mesic site increasing precipitation led to a nematode community with greater maturity and structure and shifted toward a fungal decomposition channel that also reflected a lower level of enrichment and plant parasites. We performed an indicator analysis to identify nematode genera representative of each grassland site and precipitation level. Nematode indicator composition was found to be significantly affected by the levels of applied precipitation and across sites, highlighting specific genera that may be affected by future precipitation regimes such as Eucephalobus in the arid site or Trichodorus from the mesic site. Nematode community analysis allowed for the detection of strong influences on the soil food web caused from extreme and moderate precipitation manipulations. This finding stresses the need for more genera level studies to be done to reflect specific ecosystem responses to climate change as well as the need for more cross site studies as site-specific differences must be accounted for ecological interpretations.
KW - Climate change
KW - Drought
KW - Indicator taxa
KW - Nematode indices
KW - Soil fauna
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U2 - 10.1016/j.apsoil.2021.104263
DO - 10.1016/j.apsoil.2021.104263
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85116881614
SN - 0929-1393
VL - 170
JO - Applied Soil Ecology
JF - Applied Soil Ecology
M1 - 104263
ER -