Vegetation influences desert soil arthropods and their response to altered precipitation

Altered size and frequency of precipitation pulses will influence both plant and soil communities in water-limited systems such as the Sonoran Desert. Little is known about the response of desert soil fauna communities, particularly the mesofauna that are important components of the detrital food web. Further, while there is a well-documented impact of vegetation on soil fauna communities, the role of vegetation in buffering the soil community against such environmental changes is unclear. We conducted a short-term field study to (1) assess how the amount and frequency of monsoon season precipitation pulses influence soil arthropod communities and (2) explore the role of plant-soil linkages in the response of soil arthropod communities to altered precipitation. We experimentally altered the size (ambient and 50% increase) and frequency (ambient and 2X reduced frequency) of monsoon season precipitation for two dominant shrubs representing distinctly different functional types, as well as interplant spaces. We measured the resulting soil arthropod abundance, diversity, and composition, as well as key soil properties to characterize the soil habitat beneath each vegetation type.