Selective foraging of fungi by collembolans in soil
Author
Summary, in English
Soils contain highly diverse communities of microorganisms and invertebrates. The trophic interactions between these species are largely unknown. Collembolans form an abundant part of the invertebrate community in soils. A prevailing view is that soil collembolans are generalist feeders on fungi, lichens, fragmented litter and bacteria. However, in laboratory food choice experiments, it has been shown that collembolans preferentially select certain taxa of fungi. To examine this apparent contradiction, we developed a molecular technique based on the analysis of 18S ribosomal DNA (rDNA) sequences to explore the diversity of fungi in soils and in the guts of collembolans. We report that the diversity of fungi found in the natural soil was 33 times higher than that in the guts of the collembolan Protaphorura armata. The data support the view that collembolan species can be highly selective when foraging on fungi in soils.
Department/s
Publishing year
2005
Language
English
Pages
243-246
Publication/Series
Biology letters
Volume
1
Issue
2
Document type
Journal article
Publisher
Royal Society Publishing
Topic
- Biological Sciences
- Ecology
Keywords
- collembolanfood selectionsoil food webribosomal DNAfungi
Status
Published
Research group
- Soil Ecology
- Microbial Ecology
ISBN/ISSN/Other
- ISSN: 1744-9561