ArticleBiology letters2016
Photoautotrophic microorganisms as a carbon source for temperate soil invertebrates.
Article in Biology letters, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed, 62 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Community Composition of Microbial Eukaryotes Transported by Stemflow from Fagus grandifolia Ehrh. (American Beech) Trees in Northeastern Ohio (USA).Microbial ecology · 2025Article
- The Biogeography of Apicomplexan Parasites in Tropical Soils.Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Specialized protist communities on mycorrhizal fungal hyphae.Mycorrhiza · 2024Article
- Exploring the Metatranscriptome of Bacterial Communities of Two Moss Species Thriving in Different Environments-Terrestrial and Aquatic.Plants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Plant associated protists-Untapped promising candidates for agrifood tools.Environmental microbiology · 2023Review
- Photosynthetic microorganisms effectively contribute to bryophyte COISME communications · 2022Article
- Impact of Nutrients on Protozoa Community Diversity and Structure in Litter of Two Natural Grass Species in a Copper Tailings Dam, China.Microorganisms · 2021Article
- Radiocarbon signature reveals that most springtails depend on carbon from living plants.Biology letters · 2021Article
- Assessing the responses ofPeerJ · 2020Article
- Article
- Conversion of rainforest to oil palm and rubber plantations alters energy channels in soil food webs.Ecology and evolution · 2019Article
- Combining bulk and amino acid stable isotope analyses to quantify trophic level and basal resources of detritivores: a case study on earthworms.Oecologia · 2019Article
- From molecular manipulation of domesticatedeLife · 2018Review
- Stable isotope analysis (δ (13)C and δ (15)N) of soil nematodes from four feeding groups.PeerJ · 2016Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
We tested experimentally if photoautotrophic microorganisms are a carbon source for invertebrates in temperate soils. We exposed forest or arable soils to a (13)CO2-enriched atmosphere and quantified (13)C assimilation by three common animal groups: earthworms (Oligochaeta), springtails (Hexapoda) and slugs (Gastropoda). Endogeic earthworms (Allolobophora chlorotica) and hemiedaphic springtails (Ceratophysella denticulata) were highly (13)C enriched when incubated under light, deriving up to 3.0 and 17.0%, respectively, of their body carbon from the microbial source in 7 days. Earthworms assimilated more (13)C in undisturbed soil than when the microbial material was mixed into the soil, presumably reflecting selective surface grazing. By contrast, neither adult nor newly hatched terrestrial slugs (Deroceras reticulatum) grazed on algal mats. Non-photosynthetic (13)CO2 fixation in the dark was negligible. We conclude from these preliminary laboratory experiments that, in addition to litter and root-derived carbon from vascular plants, photoautotrophic soil surface microorganisms (cyanobacteria, algae) may be an ecologically important carbon input route for temperate soil animals that are traditionally assigned to the decomposer channel in soil food web models and carbon cycling studies.
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