English
 
Help Privacy Policy Disclaimer
  Advanced SearchBrowse

Item

ITEM ACTIONSEXPORT

Released

Journal Article

Contrasting central Amazonian rainforests and their influence on chemical properties of the cuticle of two millipede species - a first study

MPS-Authors
/persons/resource/persons56981

Vohland,  Katrin
Working Group Tropical Ecology, Max Planck Institute for Limnology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, Max Planck Society;

/persons/resource/persons56681

Furch,  Karin
Working Group Tropical Ecology, Max Planck Institute for Limnology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, Max Planck Society;

/persons/resource/persons56570

Adis,  Joachim
Working Group Tropical Ecology, Max Planck Institute for Limnology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, Max Planck Society;

External Resource
No external resources are shared
Fulltext (restricted access)
There are currently no full texts shared for your IP range.
Fulltext (public)
There are no public fulltexts stored in PuRe
Supplementary Material (public)
There is no public supplementary material available
Citation

Vohland, K., Furch, K., & Adis, J. (2003). Contrasting central Amazonian rainforests and their influence on chemical properties of the cuticle of two millipede species - a first study. Tropical Ecology, 44(2), 233-239.


Cite as: https://hdl.handle.net/11858/00-001M-0000-000F-DC9C-F
Abstract
The chemical composition of the cuticle of two closely related detritivorous polydesmid millipedes, inhabitants of contrasting forest habitats, was compared for their respective bioelement content (calcium, magnesium, potassium, silicon). No differences were found for the absolute amount of bioelements, but the relative amount was higher in Pycnotropis tida (Diplopoda, Polydesmida, Aphelidesmidae) from the inundation forest. P. sigma from the upland forest had a higher weight and higher fraction of organic compounds. That might be explained by a substitution of calcium with proteins. Both millipede species strongly accumulated calcium, so that differences in calcium contents of the different trophic levels were reduced within the food chain. The calcium ratio (calcium content in the cuticle to calcium content in wood) was about 50 in P. tida and 120 in P. sigma. Some adaptive and evolutionary consequences of the different life cycles in relation to the resource quality and species distribution are discussed.