HR: 1330h
AN: NB33I-16    [Abstracts]
TI: Effect of Macroinvertebrate Functional Diversity on Leaf Decomposition in a Laboratory Experiment
AU: * Peeters, E
EM: edwin.peeters@wur.nl
AF: Aquatic Ecology and Water Quality Management, Wageningen University, PO Box 8080, Wageningen, 6700 DD Netherlands
AU: Hoefeijzers, B
AF: Aquatic Ecology and Water Quality Management, Wageningen University, PO Box 8080, Wageningen, 6700 DD Netherlands
AU: Franken, R
AF: Aquatic Ecology and Water Quality Management, Wageningen University, PO Box 8080, Wageningen, 6700 DD Netherlands
AB: Biodiversity on earth is decreasing, yet still little is known of the effects of this loss on ecosystem functioning. The majority of studies dealing with species diversity and ecosystem functioning found a positive relationship. Different species may have similar functions in an ecosystem and can be clustered in functional groups. Based on their adaptations for food acquisition, macroinvertebrates are divided in different functional feeding groups. We performed a 12 days lasting laboratory experiment in which we studied the decomposition of poplar leaves under different combinations of three functional feeding groups (shredders, collector-filterers, grazers). As test-organisms were used: Gammarus pulex and Asellus aquaticus as shredders, Bythinia tentaculata and Planorbis planorbis as grazers, and Dreissena polymorpha and Hydropsyche angustipennis as collector-filterers. The results of our experiment show that all three functional groups alone contributed significantly to the decomposition of the poplar leaves, with the greatest decomposition rate by shredders. The contribution of the collector-filterers is due to leaf use for case building by H. angustipennis. Decomposition by shredders in combination with grazers or collectors or both grazers and collectors is not significantly different from decomposition by shredders alone. Therefore, there seems no relationship between functional feeding-group diversity and rate of decomposition.
DE: 9810 New fields (not classifiable under other headings)
SC: North American Benthological Society [NB]
MN: 2005 Joint Assembly