Ecomorphosis in communities of Collembola: an indicator of climatic gradients?

TY - CONF

T1 - Ecomorphosis in communities of Collembola: an indicator of climatic gradients?

AU - Bonfanti, Jonathan

AU - Cortet, Jérôme

AU - Hedde, Mickaël

AU - Krogh, Paul Henning

N1 - Conference code: 18

PY - 2021/8/16

Y1 - 2021/8/16

N2 - Collembola represent a widespread class of arthropods living mostly in soil and on soil surface. Communities of Collembola have notably been used as bioindicators of several environmental factors such as pollution or land use. Recently, they have also opened perspectives in studying the effects of projected climate change on soil biodiversity. Moreover, their use in soil functional ecology is on the rise, notably through the study of collembolan traits, in response to their environment. Collembola are known to exhibit several morphological variations through their life cycle (independently to body size growth and sexual dimorphism). One of these phenomena, named ecomorphosis, was notably described as being a survival strategy mainly triggered by elevated temperature. In a trait-based analysis context, the ability of Collembola to display ecomorphosis appears interesting since this phenomenon covers several morphological and physiological traits (sensu Pey et al. 2014). We thus hypothesized that species carrying ecomorphosis ability would be favourited in environments presenting high thermal amplitudes. Hence, we firstly gathered from the literature a list of European species of Collembola known to be able to display ecomorphosis, and then confronted it to temperature gradients. To do so, we used data from the ANR-ECOPICS project, that presents communities of Collembola sampled in June 2018 along an altitudinal gradient in the French Alps between 1400 m and 2400 m asl. Preliminary results showed that the mean presence of ability to display ecomorphosis is positively correlated with altitude. We might even detect a threshold effect above 2000 m asl, thus revealing links between thaw and the phenology of the local species. In a rapid global change context, we here aimed to improve the knowledge in functional responses of soil mesofauna to climatic gradients and provided new insights to trait-environment relationships in European species of Collembola.

AB - Collembola represent a widespread class of arthropods living mostly in soil and on soil surface. Communities of Collembola have notably been used as bioindicators of several environmental factors such as pollution or land use. Recently, they have also opened perspectives in studying the effects of projected climate change on soil biodiversity. Moreover, their use in soil functional ecology is on the rise, notably through the study of collembolan traits, in response to their environment. Collembola are known to exhibit several morphological variations through their life cycle (independently to body size growth and sexual dimorphism). One of these phenomena, named ecomorphosis, was notably described as being a survival strategy mainly triggered by elevated temperature. In a trait-based analysis context, the ability of Collembola to display ecomorphosis appears interesting since this phenomenon covers several morphological and physiological traits (sensu Pey et al. 2014). We thus hypothesized that species carrying ecomorphosis ability would be favourited in environments presenting high thermal amplitudes. Hence, we firstly gathered from the literature a list of European species of Collembola known to be able to display ecomorphosis, and then confronted it to temperature gradients. To do so, we used data from the ANR-ECOPICS project, that presents communities of Collembola sampled in June 2018 along an altitudinal gradient in the French Alps between 1400 m and 2400 m asl. Preliminary results showed that the mean presence of ability to display ecomorphosis is positively correlated with altitude. We might even detect a threshold effect above 2000 m asl, thus revealing links between thaw and the phenology of the local species. In a rapid global change context, we here aimed to improve the knowledge in functional responses of soil mesofauna to climatic gradients and provided new insights to trait-environment relationships in European species of Collembola.

U2 - 10.13140/RG.2.2.26150.86080

DO - 10.13140/RG.2.2.26150.86080

M3 - Poster

T2 - XVIII International Colloquium on Soil Zoology

Y2 - 16 August 2021 through 18 August 2021

ER -