Comparison of the earthworm fauna of oak and spruce forest on western slopes Kopaonik Mountain in Serbia.

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the diversity and presence of ecological categories of earthworm fauna in oak and spruce forests. We sampled a total of 96 samples (48 in oak and 48 in spruce forests) for two years of fieldwork. Totally 13 earthworm species belonging to six genera were found in the studied forests. The earthworm abundance and species richness were higher in oak forests (113 individuals/9 species) in a spruce forest) than spruce forests (82 individuals/5 species). The differences in ecological categories between studied forests were clearly evident and expected. Namely, in spruce forests our results indicated a complete absence of anecic and endogeic species, while epigeic species were the most dominant. However, it seems that these patterns depend primarily on the soil type. A combination of alpha diversity index (Shannon-Weaver, Evenness, and Berger-Parker) and beta diversity (Jaccard’s coefficient of similarity) were used for determining the impact of studied forests on the earthworm community structure. Shannon’s diversity and Shannon’s evenness indices had higher values in oak forests, while the Berger-Parker index of dominance had lower values in oak forests than in spruce forests. As expected, Jaccard’s index of similarity showed the earthworm community structure was clearly separated between the oak and spruce forests. Overall, the results of these indices indicated that soil type, vegetation cover and altitude strongly influenced the differences in earthworm community structure in studied forests