Collembolan dietary specialisation on soil grown fungi

Preferences of six collembolans for eight species of microfungi grown in soil have been investigated. Collembolans (Folsomia fimetaria, Isotoma anglicana, Isotama notabilis, Heteromurus nitidus, Protaphorura armata, Pseudosinella alba) and microfungi where chosen for the experiment on the basis of their abundance and vertical distribution in an organically grown field where all organisms and soil were collected. Collembolans were tested with pairs of different species of microfungi and a control (sterile soil) in petri dishes and their position determined after 90 min. Based on the first two axes in a Principal Component Analysis we could identify two main feeding patterns in the collembolans: (1) their general acceptance of the fungi (the mean value of the preference indices for all eight fungi), and (2) their alternating preference for Cladosporium herbarum and Fusarium culmorum (high preference index for C. herbarum and low for F. culmorum or vice versa). The six collembolan species in our study combined these two feeding patterns with an intraspecific preference for the eight fungal species and seemed to minimise food competition among collembolans co-occurring in the same soil horizons. Our data suggest that differences in preference between collembolan species may help to explain the coexistence of many species in the same microhabitats of the soil