Detritivores are heterotrophs that obtain nutrients by consuming detritus. There are many kinds of invertebrates, vertebrates, and plants that carry out coprophagy. By doing so, all these detritivores contribute to decomposition and the nutrient cycles. Detritivores should be distinguished from other decomposers, such as many species of bacteria, fungi and protists, which are unable to ingest discrete lumps of matter. Instead, these other decomposers live by absorbing and metabolizing on a molecular scale. The terms detritivore and decomposer are often used interchangeably, but they describe different organisms. Detritivores are usually arthropods and help in the process of remineralization. Detritivores perform the first stage of remineralization, by fragmenting the dead plant matter, allowing decomposers to perform the second stage of remineralization.
Elateridae or click beetles are a family of beetles. Other names include elaters, snapping beetles, spring beetles or skipjacks. This family was defined by William Elford Leach (1790–1836) in 1815. They are a cosmopolitan beetle family characterized by the unusual click mechanism they possess. There are a few other families of Elateroidea in which a few members have the same mechanism, but most elaterid subfamilies can click. A spine on the prosternum can be snapped into a corresponding notch on the mesosternum, producing a violent "click" that can bounce the beetle into the air. Clicking is mainly used to avoid predation, although it is also useful when the beetle is on its back and needs to right itself. There are about 9300 known species worldwide, and 965 valid species in North America.
Cryptobiosis or anabiosis is a metabolic state in extremophilic organisms in response to adverse environmental conditions such as desiccation, freezing, and oxygen deficiency. In the cryptobiotic state, all measurable metabolic processes stop, preventing reproduction, development, and repair. When environmental conditions return to being hospitable, the organism will return to its metabolic state of life as it was prior to cryptobiosis.
The soil food web is the community of organisms living all or part of their lives in the soil. It describes a complex living system in the soil and how it interacts with the environment, plants, and animals.
Ecological facilitation or probiosis describes species interactions that benefit at least one of the participants and cause harm to neither. Facilitations can be categorized as mutualisms, in which both species benefit, or commensalisms, in which one species benefits and the other is unaffected. This article addresses both the mechanisms of facilitation and the increasing information available concerning the impacts of facilitation on community ecology.
Soil ecology is the study of the interactions among soil organisms, and between biotic and abiotic aspects of the soil environment. It is particularly concerned with the cycling of nutrients, formation and stabilization of the pore structure, the spread and vitality of pathogens, and the biodiversity of this rich biological community.
Mesostigmata is an order of mites belonging to the Parasitiformes. They are by far the largest group of Parasitiformes, with over 8,000 species in 130 families. Mesostigmata includes parasitic as well as free-living and predatory forms. They can be recognized by the single pair of spiracles positioned laterally on the body.
Peripatoides indigo, the indigo velvet worm, is a velvet worm of the family Peripatopsidae. The Māori name for the velvet worm is ngaokeoke, from the Māori word 'ngaoki', to crawl.
Mycena galopus, commonly known as the milky mycena, milking bonnet or milk-drop mycena, is an inedible species of fungus in the family Mycenaceae of the order Agaricales. It produces small mushrooms that have grayish-brown, bell-shaped, radially-grooved caps up to 2.5 cm (1 in) wide. The gills are whitish to gray, widely spaced, and squarely attached to the stem. The slender stems are up to 8 cm (3 in) long, and pale gray at the top, becoming almost black at the hairy base. The stem will ooze a whitish latex if it is injured or broken. The variety nigra has a dark gray cap, while the variety candida is white. All varieties of the mushroom occur during summer and autumn on leaf litter in coniferous and deciduous woodland.
Springtails (Collembola) form the largest of the three lineages of modern hexapods that are no longer considered insects. Although the three orders are sometimes grouped together in a class called Entognatha because they have internal mouthparts, they do not appear to be any more closely related to one another than they are to all insects, which have external mouthparts.
Sminthuridae is a family of springtails of the order Symphypleona. Sminthurids are commonly referred to as globular springtails.
Plant litter is dead plant material that have fallen to the ground. This detritus or dead organic material and its constituent nutrients are added to the top layer of soil, commonly known as the litter layer or O horizon. Litter is an important factor in ecosystem dynamics, as it is indicative of ecological productivity and may be useful in predicting regional nutrient cycling and soil fertility.
The Laelapidae are a family of mites in the order Mesostigmata. The family is also referred to in the literature as Laelaptidae, which may be the correct spelling.
This is a glossary of terms used in the descriptions of ants.
Hugo Albert Tullgren was a Swedish entomologist and arachnologist.
Gustav Karl Theodor Friedrich Baermann, was a medical doctor and researcher into public health in the early 20th century. He worked for the former Dutch East Indies administration as a foreign scientist. He was the originator of the Baermann Technique for the extraction of larval roundworms and published his seminal work in 1917.
Nelloptodes gretae is a species of beetle in the family Ptiliidae. It was described in October 2019 and named after the environmental activist Greta Thunberg. Its long antennae bear a passing resemblance to her braided pigtails.
Stylopage is a polytypic genus of predacious fungus in the order Zoopagales, within the subphylum Zoopagomycotina. All known species of Stylopage subsist on various species of amoebae or nematodes by trapping their prey, typically using an adhesive substance that coats their vegetative hyphae, and absorbing nutrients through the projection of a haustorium. 17 extant Stylopage species have been described thus far.
Xyleborus dispar is a species of bark beetle commonly called the Pear blight beetle, or the European shothole borer. It is an invasive species in North America, and can be a pest in orchards and forests throughout its range.
