Effects of forest stand type on oribatid mite (Acari: Oribatida) assemblages in a southwestern Quebec forest

Despite the ubiquity of oribatid mites in soil and litter systems, and their importance in decomposition and nutrient cycling processes, little is known of the factors underlying the composition of their assemblages. Our objective was to address this by determining how oribatid assemblage composition changes by forest stand type. This work was done in and near a hardwood forest in southwestern Quebec, Canada. We sampled mites by collecting 1 L of litter and 170 cm(3) of soil from four sites in each of four distinct habitat types: American beech stands, sugar maple stands, mixed deciduous stands and mixed conifer plantations. Samples were collected in July and September 2005, and June 2006, and over 6500 oribatid mites were collected and identified to species. Abundance and species richness differed between forest types: for abundance conifer > beech > maple > mixed deciduous while for species richness beech and conifer > maple > mixed deciduous. Ordination analyses revealed that conifer plantations and beech stands supported distinct assemblages, while there were some overlap in the assemblages found in maple stands and mixed deciduous stands. These data support the importance of aboveground plant communities in affecting the composition of oribatid assemblages even at local scales and provide insight into additional impacts that may be caused by shifts in plant species ranges due to global changes. (C) 2010 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.