Zotz Gerhard, Traunspurger Walter
Functional Ecology Group, Institute of Biology and Environmental Sciences, University of Oldenburg, Box 2503, 26111, Oldenburg, Germany.
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Ancon, Apartado Postal 0843-03092, Balboa, Republica de Panama.
BMC Ecol. 2016 Mar 15;16:9. doi: 10.1186/s12898-016-0069-9.
Nematodes are a very diverse and extremely abundant group of animals, but their occurrence in the tropics is surprisingly little understood. We investigated the meiofauna of epiphytic tank bromeliads in the lowlands of Panama with particular emphasis on nematodes.
We encountered 89 morphospecies of nematodes in 54 bromeliad tanks, which were sampled in the wet and the dry season. Rotifers were by far the most abundant group in both the dry and the wet season (with up to 960 individual ml(-1)), followed by nematodes, annelids and harpacticoid copepods. Individual plants hosted up to 25 nematode species. These nematodes represented a diversity of feeding guilds, suction-feeders and deposit-feeders being most abundant. The relative abundances of feeding-types of nematodes differed considerably in the wet and dry season. Both species richness and abundance were strongly correlated with the size of the phytotelms and the season, while species diversity assessed with the Shannon-index was affected by neither of the two.
This is the first study with a particular focus on the diversity of nematodes in tank bromeliads. We document a meiofauna of considerable abundance and diversity, which suggests important functional roles in ecological processes such as decomposition, which in turn warrants further study.
线虫是一类种类繁多且数量极其丰富的动物，但它们在热带地区的情况却鲜为人知。我们对巴拿马低地附生凤梨科植物叶腋积水处的小型底栖动物进行了调查，特别关注了线虫。
我们在54个凤梨科植物叶腋积水处采集了样本，在雨季和旱季都发现了89种线虫形态物种。轮虫是旱季和雨季中数量最多的类群（每毫升多达960个个体），其次是线虫、环节动物和猛水蚤。单株植物上最多有25种线虫。这些线虫代表了多种取食类群，吸食性取食者和沉积性取食者最为丰富。线虫取食类型的相对丰度在雨季和旱季有很大差异。物种丰富度和丰度都与积水处的大小和季节密切相关，而用香农指数评估的物种多样性则不受这两个因素的影响。
这是第一项特别关注凤梨科植物叶腋积水处线虫多样性的研究。我们记录了一个数量可观且具有多样性的小型底栖动物群落，这表明它们在诸如分解等生态过程中具有重要的功能作用，进而值得进一步研究。
