Stability, ephemerality and dispersal ability: microarthropod assemblages on fungal sporophores
1997
O'Connell, Tadhg | Bolger, Thomas
A comprehensive analysis of the microarthropod fauna from fungal sporophores revealed a series of recurrent patterns demonstrating the non-random structure of these assemblages. Despite the existence of a strong species-area relationship from sporophores of certain fungi, particularly among perennial species, several small sporophores always maintained a more diverse microarthropod fauna than fewer large sporophores of equivalent total area. A consistendy high degree of overlap in microarthropod species occurrence between larger and smaller sporophores was indicated by the presence of highly significant nested subset structure. The fauna from Hetervbasidion annosum sporophores was the most nested, followed by Hypholoma fasciculate and a collection of pooled agarics, respectively. When the fauna was split into functional groups, microphytophages were always significandy nested in their distributions but, when significant, macrophytophages and panphytophages had stronger nested hierarchies. Non-random organization was least evident among predatory species. Micro-arthropods had significandy ordered distributions on sporophores of various fungi. Many species occurred on perennial H. annosum sporophores of all sizes while others had more restricted distributions. Most species fi/om very ephemeral agarics, including those which were widely distributed on H. annosum, were restricted to a small number oflarger sporophores. The pattern from H. fasciculare was intermediate; most species had narrow distributions and were present only on larger sporophores, except a small number of more widely distributed species.
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