Counting marmots…
It is widely accepted that in stream systems, detritivores accelerate the breakdown of detritus that has been “conditioned” by microbial decomposers. By accelerating the breakdown of dead plant material, detritivores release nutrients and smaller food particles that are used by downstream plants and animals, respectively . Standing-water ecologists have often assumed animal detritivores play a similar role in ponds and wetlands, but there are few published studies investigating the contribution of animal detritivores to the overall breakdown of detritus in standing water systems. In this study, I compared detrital breakdown rates with and without invertebrate detritivores in nine subalpine ponds that differ in hydroperiod (permanent, semi-permanent, and temporary) at the Mexican Cut in the East River Valley in the Colorado Rockies. The biomass dominant detritivores in these systems are cased caddisflies (Trichoptera: Limnephilidae). I placed 14 containers with 5g of sedge into 3 permanent and 3 semi-permanent ponds, and 10 containers in 3 temporary ponds, into the nine ponds. half of the containers were covered with coarse mesh (20 mm) to allow detritivore access, while the other half were covered in fine mesh (2 mm) to prevent detritivore access. Every ten days, a pair of containers (one coarse and one fine mesh) were removed from each pond to compare the rate of detritus breakdown through time. . On each date, the sedge was oven-dried and weighed, and detritivores in each container were identified. Detritus in the coarse mesh containers lost mass two times faster than the detritus in the fine mesh containers. Fine particulate organic matter increased at a higher rate in the coarse mesh containers, suggesting that these caddisflies have a significant impact on the breakdown rate of detritus. Additionally, the detritus broke down fastest in the permanent ponds.
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