Diet influences rates of carbon and nitrogen mineralization from decomposing grasshopper frass and cadavers
2013
Fielding, Dennis J. | Trainor, Ellen | Zhang, Mingchu
Insect herbivory can produce a pulse of mineral nitrogen (N) in soil from the decomposition of frass and cadavers. In this study, we examined how diet quality affects rates of N and carbon (C) mineralization from grasshopper frass and cadavers. Frass was collected from grasshoppers fed with natural or meridic diets which varied in N content. Frass was also collected from naturally foraging grasshoppers. Nitrogen concentration of frass was directly proportional to diet N, but N content of cadavers was not affected by diet. Incubations of soil plus frass were performed at constant soil moisture and temperature (15°C) for 28 days, after which levels of mineral N (KCl extract) were determined. About 44 % of C and N from the cadavers were mineralized after the 28-day incubation. Carbon mineralization of frass was not affected by diet or frass N but varied considerably among different food treatments: from 15 to 46 % of the C in frass was released as carbon dioxide. Generally, frass with C/N ratio greater than 20 resulted in net immobilization of N. Results suggest that much of the N in grasshopper frass and cadavers is labile and rapidly available for plants, depending on the quality of food consumed by the grasshoppers.
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