Reference no: EM133628399

Question

".... Hairston (1987) suggested that predation by salamanders would increase the rate of decomposition because of a reduction in numbers of fungal and bacterial consumers. My results reject this hypothesis because decomposition rate was reduced significantly in the presence of salamanders. I hypothesize that the reduction in decomposition rate in the presence of salamanders resulted from the consumption by salamanders of key leaf litter fragmenters (millipedes, mollusks, and insect larvae). This is, I believe, the first experimental demonstration of the effect of an amphibian on a function of a forested ecosystem. The study of how diversity of life within communities affects the function (photosynthesis, decomposition, nutrient cycling) of those communities has just begun to develop (Huston, 1993; Schulze and Mooney, 1993; Jones and Lawton, 1995). The elimination of some species appears to have limited effects on ecosystem processes while the elimination of others fundamentally alters function (Lawton and Brown, 1994). My results suggest that no other predator in enclosures (e.g. spiders or centipedes) increased their ability to control prey populations in the absence of salamanders. Of course there may be other species with this capacity outside enclosures. This potential is being examined in our continuing work in enclosures and plots.