PARENT SESSION
Contributed Oral Session 153: Forest Soils and Nutrient Cycling
Friday, August 12, 8:00 AM - 11:30 AM, Meeting Room 514 A, Level 5, Palais des congrès de Montréal
Support for the growth rate hypothesis in a terrestrial detrital community.
McGlynn, Terrence*,1, Clark, Deborah2, Fawcett, Ryan1, Salinas, Daniel1, Esparza, Alexandria1, 1 University of San Diego, San Diego, CA2 University of Missouri - St. Louis, St. Louis, MO
ABSTRACT- In a tropical wet forest in Costa Rica, soil stoichiometry is a major predictor of animal density and trophic structure. We have found that phosphorus (P) apparently limits the density of arthropods in the detrital food web across the landscape of a tropical rain forest. To evaluate whether P limitation is mediated by a constraint of organismal growth, we tested whether growth rates of ant colonies may be predicted by environmental C:P. We found that nutrient limitation varies with taxon, and that stoichiometry explains the majority of the variance of growth rates of most ant taxa.
Key words: ecological stoichiometry, phosphorus, ants, tropical rain forest