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Responses of temporal distribution of gastropods to individual and combined effects of elevated CO2 and N deposition in annual grassland
- Source :
- Acta Oecologica. 31:343-352
- Publication Year :
- 2007
- Publisher :
- Elsevier BV, 2007.
-
Abstract
- Terrestrial gastropods have been shown to exert major impacts on the plant structure and species composition of temperate grasslands and other terrestrial plant communities. In order to develop predictions of plant community responses to changing environments, it is critical to understand how factors structuring plant communities will be influenced by global changes. Nevertheless, little is known about the potential for the size and abundance of gastropods to be altered by the individual and combined effects of elevated atmospheric CO 2 and increased deposition of N. Previous work suggests that responses of herbivore abundance to these global changes seem likely to depend, in part, upon the changes in the quantity of plant biomass available for consumption, and changes in the nutritional quality of this plant material for gastropod survival, development, and reproduction. Therefore, in this study we investigated the effect of elevated CO 2 and increased N deposition on gastropod size and abundance, as well as the effects on plant community production and N status. Elevated CO 2 depressed the size of gastropods early in the growing season by 29% to 42%, increased mid-season gastropod abundance by 38% to 43%, and depressed abundance late in the growing season by 21% to 29%. These changes in gastropod size and abundance were due largely to the modification of plant tissue quality and quantity. Increased N deposition, in contrast, influenced neither gastropod abundance nor per capita biomass during any part of the growing season. Neither elevated CO 2 nor increased N deposition disrupted the temporal synchrony between plant production and slug abundance.
- Subjects :
- Biomass (ecology)
Herbivore
animal structures
biology
Ecology
ved/biology
fungi
ved/biology.organism_classification_rank.species
food and beverages
Growing season
Plant community
biology.organism_classification
Abundance (ecology)
Terrestrial plant
Terrestrial ecosystem
Mollusca
Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
Nature and Landscape Conservation
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 1146609X
- Volume :
- 31
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Acta Oecologica
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi...........e4a932a00ed755dd66d3b7e42431da45