Dataset Information

Nematode spatial and ecological patterns from tropical and temperate rainforests.

ABSTRACT: Large scale diversity patterns are well established for terrestrial macrobiota (e.g. plants and vertebrates), but not for microscopic organisms (e.g. nematodes). Due to small size, high abundance, and extensive dispersal, microbiota are assumed to exhibit cosmopolitan distributions with no biogeographical patterns. This assumption has been extrapolated from local spatial scale studies of a few taxonomic groups utilizing morphological approaches. Recent molecularly-based studies, however, suggest something quite opposite. Nematodes are the most abundant metazoans on earth, but their diversity patterns are largely unknown. We conducted a survey of nematode diversity within three vertical strata (soil, litter, and canopy) of rainforests at two contrasting latitudes in the North American meridian (temperate: the Olympic National Forest, WA, U.S.A and tropical: La Selva Biological Station, Costa Rica) using standardized sampling designs and sample processing protocols. To describe nematode diversity, we applied an ecometagenetic approach using 454 pyrosequencing. We observed that: 1) nematode communities were unique without even a single common species between the two rainforests, 2) nematode communities were unique among habitats in both rainforests, 3) total species richness was 300% more in the tropical than in the temperate rainforest, 4) 80% of the species in the temperate rainforest resided in the soil, whereas only 20% in the tropics, 5) more than 90% of identified species were novel. Overall, our data provided no support for cosmopolitanism at both local (habitats) and large (rainforests) spatial scales. In addition, our data indicated that biogeographical patterns typical of macrobiota also exist for microbiota.

SUBMITTER: Porazinska DL

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3439412 | biostudies-literature | 2012

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Nematode spatial and ecological patterns from tropical and temperate rainforests.

Porazinska Dorota L DL Giblin-Davis Robin M RM Powers Thomas O TO Thomas W Kelley WK

PloS one 20120911 9

Large scale diversity patterns are well established for terrestrial macrobiota (e.g. plants and vertebrates), but not for microscopic organisms (e.g. nematodes). Due to small size, high abundance, and extensive dispersal, microbiota are assumed to exhibit cosmopolitan distributions with no biogeographical patterns. This assumption has been extrapolated from local spatial scale studies of a few taxonomic groups utilizing morphological approaches. Recent molecularly-based studies, however, suggest ...[more]

PMID: 22984536

Similar Datasets

Project description:1. The establishment of new botanic gardens in tropical regions highlights a need for weed risk assessment tools suitable for tropical ecosystems. The relevance of plant traits for invasion into tropical rainforests has not been well studied.2. Working in and around four botanic gardens in Indonesia where 590 alien species have been planted, we estimated the effect of four plant traits, plus time since species introduction, on: (a) the naturalization probability and (b) abundance (density) of naturalized species in adjacent native tropical rainforests; and (c) the distance that naturalized alien plants have spread from the botanic gardens.3. We found that specific leaf area (SLA) strongly differentiated 23 naturalized from 78 non-naturalized alien species (randomly selected from 577 non-naturalized species) in our study. These trends may indicate that aliens with high SLA, which had a higher probability of naturalization, benefit from at least two factors when establishing in tropical forests: high growth rates and occupation of forest gaps. Naturalized aliens had high SLA and tended to be short. However, plant height was not significantly related to species' naturalization probability when considered alongside other traits.4. Alien species that were present in the gardens for over 30 years and those with small seeds also had higher probabilities of becoming naturalized, indicating that garden plants can invade the understorey of closed canopy tropical rainforests, especially when invading species are shade tolerant and have sufficient time to establish.5. On average, alien species that were not animal dispersed spread 78 m further into the forests and were more likely to naturalize than animal-dispersed species. We did not detect relationships between the measured traits and estimated density of naturalized aliens in the adjacent forests.6. Synthesis: Traits were able to differentiate alien species from botanic gardens that naturalized in native forest from those that did not; this is promising for developing trait-based risk assessment in the tropics. To limit the risk of invasion and spread into adjacent native forests, we suggest tropical botanic gardens avoid planting alien species with fast carbon capture strategies and those that are shade tolerant.

Dataset Information

Nematode spatial and ecological patterns from tropical and temperate rainforests.

Publications

Nematode spatial and ecological patterns from tropical and temperate rainforests.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets