Abstract
In ecosystems, the rates of resource consumption by animals drive the flows of matter and energy. Consumption rates are known to vary according to consumer energy requirements, resource nutrient content and mechanical properties. The aim of our study is to determine how mechanical constraints, compared to energetic and nutritional constraints, explain the variation in leaf litter consumption rates by macrodetritivores. In particular, we focus on the impact of litter toughness. To this end, we propose a non-linear model describing leaf litter consumption rates of detritivore as a function of litter toughness. We also investigate a possible match between bite force and litter toughness, since consumer-resource co-occurrence is thought to be driven by the match between invertebrate mandibular traits and resource toughness. Our study was designed as follows: leaf litter from oak and hornbeam was exposed to field physical and microbial decomposition in aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems for selected time periods before it was offered to eight macrodetritivore taxa (three forest stream taxa and five forest soil taxa) in no-choice laboratory feeding experiments. Our findings show that, compared to energetic and nutritional constraints, mechanical traits have a greater impact on litter consumption rate by detritivores. After subtracting the contribution of the detritivore body mass, we report that litter consumption rates depend primarily on litter toughness. A sigmoid function is best suited to characterize the relationship between mass-independent consumption rate and litter toughness. We note that the parameters of our sigmoid model are taxon-specific, suggesting biomechanical thresholds and biological differences among taxa. Interestingly, we found no correlation with detritivore bite force, suggesting that food processing by detritivores does not only depend on mandibles strength.
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Acknowledgements
We are grateful to Pierre Eon, Lise Laffond, and Estelle Ribaut, for their help in the field. We thank Frederic Julien and Lena Monceau for sample chemical analysis. We thank Valentina Soto for taking pictures of the litter discs (Fig. S4.2). Our warmest thanks go to Jean-François David, who helped us identify detritivore taxa. We thank Hervé Bascans, Thomas Bernard, and Lionel Ramond, and both Cassagnabère-Tournas (31420) and Saint-André (31420) municipalities for allowing us access to the forest sites.
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TM, AL and BP launched the study and carried out the fieldwork and laboratory experiments. TM and AL analyzed the data and wrote the first draft of the manuscript with the help of BP. All authors revised the manuscript.
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Communicated by Amy Austin.
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Marchand, T., Pey, B., Pautot, C. et al. Mechanical traits as drivers of trophic interaction between macrodetritivores and leaf litter. Oecologia 204, 641–651 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-024-05515-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-024-05515-0