The Impact of Carrion Insects on Human Impacted Soil
Abstract
Carrion plays an important role in maintaining ecosystems and providing resources for different forms of life, returning key nutrients to the environment and serving as a food source for animals. While vertebrates who consume carrion are well studied, invertebrates are not as well studied, primarily carrion insects. With the decline of mammalian scavengers due to human impact and removal of large vertebrate carcasses from ecosystems, there is a need to understand how effective insects are as scavengers, as they are common on carrion sources. In this experiment, different carrion insects were placed into containers containing poor soil, and after 3 weeks were removed and seeds were planted into the soil as a bioassay, where the root weight fraction was calculated and used to determine the quality of the soil. The results showed that carrion insects have varying influences on soil nutrients, with carrion beetles having more impact compared to flies and carrion alone.
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