Micro-distribution of Soil Inhabiting Tardigrades (Tardigrada) in a Sub-alpine Coniferous Forest of Japan |
| |
Authors: | Masamichi T. Ito Wataru Abe |
| |
Affiliation: | aKiso Experiment Station, Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute, Japan bDepartment of Biological Science, Graduate School of Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Japan |
| |
Abstract: | Micro-distribution of soil inhabiting tardigrades was studied in a sub-alpine coniferous forest (alt. 1,840 m a. s. l.) on the eastern slope of Mt. Yatsugatake, Central Japan. Eight cylindrical soil samples were taken from the forest floor. Each sample was divided into 10 slice samples of 1 cm thick. Tardigrades were extracted from samples by Baermann funnels, identified to specific level and counted. The average number of tardigrades in the study site is 74,058/m2. High densities sometimes occurred at depths greater than 5 cm. Consequently for investigating tardigrade populations, 5cm depth core sampling is insufficient in this type of habitat. Composition of the main groups of species reveals that shallow layers (1, 2 or 3 cm depth) are frequently dominated by the Diphascon-group. Macrobiotus-group species generally occurred in higher abundance in the deeper layers. It is very interesting that there are some different patterns of soil micro-distribution in tardigrade species. |
| |
Keywords: | Mt. Yatsugatake slice samples soil tardigrade population |
本文献已被 ScienceDirect 等数据库收录! |
|