SOIL MESO-FAUNA PATTERNS AND EXPERIMENTS ON LEAF LITTER MITE FUNGIVORY: PREFERENCES, EFFECTS ON FUNGAL REPRODUCTION AND DECOMPOSITION
We investigated patterns of community structure of soil meso-fauna in an tropical cloud forest. The leaf litter habitat and the actual soil below were found to support structurally different communities. Leaf litter appeared to be a complex, heterogeneous, habitat whereas soil was homogeneous. The a...
| Autors principals: | , , |
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| Format: | Online |
| Idioma: | eng |
| Publicat: |
Instituto de Ecología, A.C.
2002
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| Accés en línia: | https://azm.ojs.inecol.mx/index.php/azm/article/view/1797 |
| Sumari: | We investigated patterns of community structure of soil meso-fauna in an tropical cloud forest. The leaf litter habitat and the actual soil below were found to support structurally different communities. Leaf litter appeared to be a complex, heterogeneous, habitat whereas soil was homogeneous. The abundance of mites and collembolans marked the main differences between leaf litter and soil, and given that a large number of species of these taxa are fungivorous their distribution patterns are discussed in relation to those factors that may determine fungal activity. In microcosmos experiments we found that a fungivorous oppid mite (Oppidae) affected the spore production of four species of fungi suggesting a shift in their combative abilities. |
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