IngentaConnect Diversity of soil oribatid mites (Acari: Oribatida) from High Kat...

Authors: Noti M-I.¹; André H.M.^{2, 3}; Ducarme X.¹; Lebrun P.¹

Source: Biodiversity and Conservation, Volume 12, Number 4, April 2003 , pp. 767-785(19)

Publisher: Springer

Abstract:

Although the soil is a major reservoir of biodiversity, our knowledge of its mesofauna remains scanty, especially in the tropics. The diversity of oribatids (149 adult oribatid mite species) is analyzed for the first time in an African soil and studied in three ecosystems of a regressive sere: forest, woodland and savanna. Savanna is the richest ecosystem overall, with 105 collected species, whereas the mean number of species per relevé ( agr diversity) is highest in forest. In barren soils, the number of species observed along the sere drops regularly from the typical forest to the savanna. However, this pattern is complicated by other factors acting at different scales. The increase of oribatid richness parallels that of habitat complexity, from barren soil to termitaria colonized by grasses and trees. On a finer scale, soil properties also influence species richness, either indirectly through density (water content) or directly (total nitrogen, C/N ratio, organic matter), but their importance varies in relation to seasons. Most exclusive species (nearly 90%) are housed in the two extreme types of vegetation, forest and savanna. On a finer scale, two habitats, the typical forest and the termitaria in the savanna, are remarkable by the number of exclusive species and are worth protecting through effective conservation measures.

Keywords: Africa; Forest; Microarthropods; Savanna; Termitaria; Tropics; Vegetation; Water content; Woodland

Language: English

Document Type: Research article

Affiliations: 1: Université catholique de Louvain, Unité d'Écologie et de Biogéographie, Centre de Recherche sur la Biodiversité, Place Croix du Sud 5, B-1348, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium 2: Musée royal de l'Afrique centrale, U.R. Faune du Sol, B-3080, Tervuren, Belgium 3: (handre@africamuseum.be)

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Diversity of soil oribatid mites (Acari: Oribatida) from High Katanga (Democratic Republic of Congo): a multiscale and multifactor approach