Contributors: Centre d’Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive (CEFE); Université Paul-Valéry - Montpellier 3 (UPVM)-École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE); Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD Occitanie )-Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement (INRAE)-Institut Agro Montpellier; Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement (Institut Agro)-Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement (Institut Agro)-Université de Montpellier (UM); Etude et Compréhension de la biodiversité (ECODIV); Université de Rouen Normandie (UNIROUEN); Normandie Université (NU)-Normandie Université (NU); Écotron Européen de Montpellier; Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS); This research was part of the SoilForEUROPE project (website : https://websie.cefe.cnrs.fr/soilforeurope/) funded through the 2015-2016 BiodivERsA COFUND call for research proposals, with the national funders Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR, France), Belgian Science Policy Office (BELSPO, Belgium), Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, Germany), Research Foundation Flanders (FWO, Belgium), and The Swedish Research Council (FORMAS, Sweden). This work was possible thanks to the grant awarded to Pierre Ganault from the “Ecole Doctorale GAIA” of the University of Montpellier as well as the French unemployment allowance. The experiment was conducted at the Terrain d’Expérience and chemical analyses were performed at the Plateforme d’Analyses Chimiques en Ecologie, technical facilities of the LabEx Centre Mediterranéen de l’Environnement et de la Biodiversité.; ANR-16-EBI3-0009,SoilForEUROPE,Predicting European forest soil biodiversity and its functioning under climate change(2016)
Abstract: International audience ; Saprophagous macroarthropods are important actors in litter decomposition as they process large amounts of litter and transform it into fecal pellets that differ in chemical and physical properties compared to ingested litter. When having a choice among several litter types, saprophagous macroarthropods exhibit feeding preferences depending on their nutritional requirements and body size. However, how these preferences affect feces properties is not well known. We compared the feeding preferences, production of fecal pellets and their properties for six widespread saprophagous macroarthropods species feeding on a litter mix of four common tree species from Mediterranean forests. The six animal species showed different feeding preferences that were not correlated to litter nutritional quality. Instead, we suggest that the use as microhabitat of the leaves of one litter species with tubular shape by macroarthropods induced its higher consumption despite having the lowest nutritional value. Larger species consumed less litter per unit of body mass and had a more diverse diet composition. Furthermore, feces properties could not be linked to the diet composition, but always had higher nutritional value and water holding capacity compared to the leaf litter. The three woodlice species consistently produced feces with higher tannin concentration, higher specific area, and lower water holding capacity than that of the three millipede species. Our study calls for the consideration of other leaf litter properties than the generally studied physical and chemical ones, as well as quantifying the difference between millipede and woodlice feces properties that may have functional implication for nutrient cycling.
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