Predicting changes in carbon cycling services provided by soil arthropods

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

With ongoing climate change, the frequency and intensity of insect and disease outbreaks perturbing Canadian forests are expected to increase sharply. Damage to trees due to insect pests and pathogens have major impacts on timber production and ecosystem services. The NSERC Alliance International grant will enable Canadian researchers to take part in a unique and massive experiment in the USA, where 3,500 trees were experimentally killed to mimic death caused by insects and pathogens. This experiment offers an unprecedented opportunity to track long-term changes in forest dynamics and to study the mechanisms promoting forest health and resilience in the face of disturbance. Specifically, the project will help elucidate the processes underlying the impact of forest disturbance on soil arthropod diversity and uncover the role that arthropods might play in the stability and resilience of ecosystems in the face of disturbance. With an estimated ~12 Mt of dry carbon stored into their biomass, ants and other soil arthropods can help buffer or exacerbate the impact of disturbance on the cycling and storage of nutrients in terrestrial ecosystems. Nevertheless, the contribution of soil arthropods to nutrient cycling remains poorly documented and often ignored in biogeochemical models. Knowledge derived from the project will serve multiple purposes. Establishing clear links between arthropod diversity and nutrient cycling will help develop more accurate biochemical models that consider the role of decomposer in nutrient cycling. These models can then inform forest management practices that maximize carbon sequestration and the capacity of temperate forests to curb climate change.