Which factors determine micro-arthropods (like mites and springtails) abundance and diversity in the soil? Stef Bokhorst et al. addressed this question in a paper which was published in 2014. They analyzed the effect of plant removals in pine forest sectors in Sweden which differ in their age (time scince last forest fire) on the micro-arthropod community living in the soil. With increasing forest age, the soil fertility and amount of fast growing plant species decreases while the humus layer and amount of slow growing plant species increases. The forest sectors in this experiments were between 44 and 364 years old. In each sector, Bokhorst et al. did the same two experiments: I) removal of feather mosses and dwarf shrubs as the two main understory functional groups (understory = plant life on the ground of the forest) and II) removal of specific dwarf shrub species. While feather mosses are thought to have a large effect on the soil ecosystem because of its temperature and humidity regulation effects, dwarf shrubs (something between herb and bush) influence the soil with their litter production. However, as leaves are also produced by trees, it doesn’t wonder that the removal of moss had larger influence on the abundance of micro-arthropods as the removal of dwarf shrubs (in experiment I). All in all, the dwarf shrubs species had just minor effects on the micro-arthropods abundance and diversity, independent of their litter quality (experiment II). So mites and springtails care mainly about moss. But what about the age of the forest which affects the properties of the soil? Interestingly, only a few groups of micro-arthropods were affected by the forrest age. The others don’t care. And this is already the summary of this article: Plant removal, forest age? If you don’t touch the moss, the micro-arthropods don’t care so much what you are doing there on the surface. "Impact of understory mosses and dwarf shrubs on soil micro-arthropods in a boreal forest chronosequence."
Stef Bokhorst, et al. Plant and soil 379.1-2 (2014): 121-133.
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