Biology subjects

Sobczyk, L.

Publications and source records attributed to Sobczyk, L..

2 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2020

Should I shrink or should I flow? - body size adjustment to thermo-oxygenic niche

Organisms adjust their size according to temperature and supposedly also respond to its negative covariate, oxygen. To what extent is size a response to temperature or oxygen? We analyzed the thermo-oxygenic niche for the community of 188 rotifer species. Evolution toward ranges of thermal tolerance occurred separately from evolution toward their optima. Body size was adjusted to both temperature and oxygen, but the cues for body size response differed; size was either driven by optimal temperatures or by the oxygen tolerance range. Animals are clearly separated into generalists or specialists, and their evolutionary body size adjustment is realized through differential responses to environmental factors. Oxygen is as important as temperature in the evolution of body size and ecological niche preference. An important conclusion from this study is that oxygen deprivation following global warming seems to be as problematic for the studied organisms as the temperature increase itself.

evolutionary biology↗

bioRxiv2019

Does metal pollution affect stoichiometry of soil-litter food webs?

To date the field of ecological stoichiometry has focused mainly on aquatic systems concentrating on macro-elements. We investigated terrestrial systems and included microelements to study the elemental transfer in the detritivorous food web. We compared food webs of six sites differing in the type and degree of metal pollution along two forest transects contaminated with copper or zinc. We measured 11 elements in litter, herbivores, detritivores, predators and omnivores. Based on elemental concentrations of elements differences between trophic groups were visualized using PCA. At all sites litter C:N, C:P, C:K and C:Na ratios were higher than in animals. Invertebrate trophic groups were significantly different from each other in C:Cu, C:Zn and C:Ca ratios. The calculated resource:consumer N:P ratio suggests that invertebrates in studied forests are N limited and not P limited. Similar patterns at all sites suggests that metal pollution at the studied intensity slightly affects the transfer of elements in the terrestrial macro-invertebrate food web.

ecology↗