Oribatid mites reveal that competition for resources and trophic structure combine to regulate the assembly of diverse soil animal communities

Ecology and Evolution
Matthew MagiltonTancredi Caruso

Abstract

The role of niche partitioning in structuring species-rich soil animal communities has been debated for decades and generated the "enigma of soil animal diversity." More recently, resource-based niche partitioning has been hypothesized to play a very limited role in the assembly of soil animal communities. To test this hypothesis, we applied a novel combination of stable isotopes and null models of species co-occurrence to quantify the extent of resource niche partitioning on a diverse oribatid mite community sampled from mature oak woodland.We asked whether species aggregate or segregate spatially and how these patterns correlated with the abundance of estimated trophic guilds. We also estimated the effects of environmental variables on community structure.All measured environmental variables accounted for 12% of variance in community structure, including 8% of pure spatial structure unrelated to measured environmental factors and 2% of pure environmental variance unrelated to spatial variation. Co-occurrence analysis revealed 10 pairs of species that aggregated and six pairs of species that were spatially segregated. Values of δ15N indicated that five out of the 10 pairs of aggregated species occupied the same trophic guild, ...Continue Reading

References

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