The influence of forest age on food resource consumption and preference in invertebrates.

Abstract

Ecological succession refers to the change in species composition in an ecosystem over time. As a forest progresses through successional stages, arthropod diversity tends to increase (Keten, 2014), which may increase food resource consumption by arthropods. The purpose of our study is to determine how invertebrate food resource removal and preference varies across different stages of forest succession. We measured units of plain rice and butter , salt, and sugar coated rice removed from macrofauna-excluding cages in five forests of different ages after 24 hour periods to assess the impact of forest age on food resource removal. Our results indicate that there was a significant difference in the average units of rice removed across the different burn plots. Significantly more sugar-coated and butter-coated rice was consumed on average compared to the salt-coated and plain rice across all burn plots. However, there was no significant difference in rice removal between treatment types across the bum plots. Our findings suggest that the food preferences of arthropods remain constant over different successional stages. In all burn plots, microfauna prefered fat and carbohydrate-coated rice over plain rice and salty rice. This may have important implications for managing the microfauna communities in forests undergoing reforestation after a disturbance such as a bum or clear cut. Regulating the availability of fats and carbohydrates may enhance the health of microfauna communities and, by extension, assist forest ecosystems in recovery from disturbances.