The ecological role of mammal communities in the biogeochemical carbon cycle in a tropical environment

  1. Losada Cuquejo, María
Dirixida por:
  1. María del Mar Sobral Bernal Director
  2. Sara Varela González Director

Universidade de defensa: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela

Fecha de defensa: 21 de decembro de 2023

Tribunal:
  1. Francesco de Bello Presidente/a
  2. Otilia Reyes Ferreira Secretaria
  3. Carlos Pérez Carmona Vogal
Departamento:
  1. Departamento de Edafoloxía e Química Agrícola

Tipo: Tese

Resumo

Diversity loss can affect the ability of forests to sequester and store carbon from the atmosphere. The capture of atmospheric carbon and its storage in the biomass of organisms and in the ecosystem’s soils are key to mitigating the effects of climate change. Mammals contribute to soil carbon concentration in the northern Amazon, by generating organic remains through trophic interactions with plants and other animals. This thesis investigated whether mammal diversity, interacting with tree diversity and generating such soil organic inputs, affects the content and type of soil organic matter (SOM) and whether these diversity effects on SOM composition differ between mammal and tree communities. The first objective was to test whether both the content and type of SOMaccumulated vary with mammal and tree richness because of possible compositional differences between the organic inputs derived from plants versus animals.