Living Litter: Dynamic Trait Spectra Predict Fauna Composition
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Updated: Dec 18, 2025

Modeling the Size Spectrum for Macroinvertebrates and Fishes in Stream Ecosystems
Published on: July 30, 2019
Saori Fujii1, Matty P Berg2, Johannes H C Cornelissen3
1Department of Ecological Science, Faculty of Earth and Life Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, De Boelelaan 1085, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Department of Forest Entomology, Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute, 1 Matsunosato, Tsukuba 305-8687, Japan.
Abstract:
Understanding what drives soil fauna species composition through space and time is crucial because we should preserve soil fauna biodiversity and its key role in ecosystem functioning in this era of fast environmental change. As plant leaf litter provides both food and habitat for soil fauna, a focus on litter traits that relate to these two functions will help in understanding soil invertebrate community structure and dynamics comprehensively. To advance this agenda, we propose a conceptual framework to explicitly link the invertebrate community composition to the temporal dynamics of the litter trait space defined by two axes: a food-quality axis related to plant resource economics and chemistry and a habitat-quality axis related to litter particle size and shape.
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