Soil Fauna

Abstract

The beech forests studied provide three different environments for the soil fauna and are located in a gradient from base-rich to acid soils. The forest “Göttinger Wald” is characterized by mull soil; soil conditions in the forest “Kleiner Gudenberg” (near the town of Zierenberg; hence denoted as forest “Zierenberg”) are moder-like; and in the “Solling” forest moder soils prevail. In this chapter, the relationship between the fauna and the soil milieu is analysed, with the perspective to explain relational patterns with factors of a causal nature. The beech forests are described in detail in several chapters of this volume (Meesenburg and Brumme; Panferov et al.; Meesenburg et al.; Schmidt). We highlight some habitat characteristics directly related to the soil fauna. At the Göttinger Wald site, the soil is shallow and belongs to the soil series which has developed on the limestone, forming “terra fusca-rendzina” (about 50% of the area), rendzina (about 26%), terra fusca (about 14%) and some form of brown earths. The organic layer contains mainly leaf material (550 g dry mass m⁻²) and the annual canopy leaf litter fall is 309 g dry mass m⁻² (mean value for 1981–1991; Schmidt, unpublished results). The soil pH ranges from 6.8 to 4.3 with a mean value of about 5.8. The soil is base-rich with high cation exchange capacity. Further details are given by Schaefer (1990, 1991a) and Schaefer and Schauermann (1990). The beech forest Zierenberg consists of three sites along the slope of a hill forming a gradient from basalt to limestone: it extends from the upper part of the hill (basalt site) via an intermediate site (transition zone) to the lower part of the hill (limestone site). The average mass of leaf litter is 1,900 g at the basalt site, 1,400 g at the intermediate site and 1,600 g dry mass m⁻² at the limestone site. Annual beech leaf litter input (in 1989) was 509 g for the basalt, 445 g for the intermediate and 375 g dry mass m⁻² for the limestone site (Hartwig et al. 1991). The input of litter of stinging nettles (Urtica dioica) is 70–90 g dry mass m⁻² at the intermediate site (Scheu 1997). Soil pH of the basalt site is about 4–5, the values for the intermediate and limestone site are 5.7 and 6.7, respectively. Cation exchange capacity is intermediate between that of the forests Göttinger Wald and Solling. Further details are presented in Eichhorn (1991) and Alphei (1995).

The online version of the Erratum chapter can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/b82392_25